LIBRARY 

"University  of  California^ 
IRVINE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 

GIFT  OF 

GLEN  R.  SHEPHERD,  M.D. 


837 


Pathfinders  in  Medicine 


THE  SEMMELWEIS  MONUMENT  •  BUDAPEST 


PAI  N  TED   FOR 
PATHFINDERS  OF   MEDICINE." 


Pathfinders  in  Medicine 


By 

Victor  Robinson 

r  ^ 

With  a  Letter  from  Ernst  Haeckel 

and  an 
Introduction  by  Abraham  Jacobi 


New  York 
Medical  Review  of  Reviews 

1912 


Kl 


COPYRIGHT,  1912 
BY  MEDICAL  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS 


(LQ  Ernst  fcjar rhrl 

Illustrious  Master: 

It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  avail  myself  of  your  permission 
to  dedicate  my  book  to  you.  Not  only  the  young  men  of  Jena 
are  your  pupils;  wherever  is  found  a  truth-seeker,  there  is 
found  a  student  of  Haeckel. 

The  world  knows  that  on  the  battlefield  of  rationalism,  you 
are  the  leading  warrior.  In  the  struggle  for  truth,  your  voice 
has  long  been  the  foremost  In  the  conflict  against  supersti- 
tion, you  have  ever  held  aloft  the  banner  on  which  is  inscribed 
Impaxridi  progrediamur!  The  history  of  modern  science 
cannot  be  written  without  the  name  of  Ernst  Haeckel. 

Nothing  unworthy  must  be  found  in  these  pages;  no  un- 
fair passage  should  be  left  within  these  covers;  only  pure 
thoughts  belong  to  a  book  consecrated  to  an  unsullied  light- 
bringer.  I  have  written  with  careful  hands  and  clean;  for 
I  have  sat  near  the  altar  of  the  Temple  of  Truth.  The  many 
shortcomings  and  imperfections  of  this  volume  are  due  to  my 
limitations  alone;  the  best  that  I  could  do,  I  have  done. 

Our  benefactors  are  those  who  enlarge  our  mental  vision; 
since  Darwin  and  Spencer  left  us,  you  have  remained  with- 
out a  peer  in  the  realm  of  thought  —  and  you  have  gone  be- 
yond them.  Nothing  can  repay  my  intellectual  debt  to  you, 
but  as  a  token  of  my  endless  esteem  and  affection,  I  lay  be- 
fore you  my  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE. 

VICTOR  ROBINSON. 


<?£{oz£*Z.     ^<j£& 


/  < 

^l^fy^^^^rC^^^-t^C^ 

,/^Cf^  &*~+t2*&-&*<^a~ 

[Haeckel's  Letter  to  the  Author] 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

Three  years  ago,  when  the  first  of  these  sketches  appeared, 
I  did  not  expect  to  write  enough  of  them  to  make  a  book. 
I  entered  the  field  of  medical  history  as  I  had  entered  several 
others  —  out  of  curiosity.  But  the  fruit  was  tempting,  and 
I  have  gathered  it  ever  since. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  year,  when  the  Medical  Review 
of  Reviews  came  under  its  present  management,  I  assumed 
the  editorship  of  the  Department  of  History  of  Medicine, 
and  it  is  for  this  journal  that  most  of  these  Pathfinders  were 
originally  prepared.  Some  of  them,  however,  had  previously 
appeared  in  the  Medical  Record,  American  Journal  of  Clinical 
Medicine,  and  the  Critic  and  Guide,  to  which  periodicals  my 
thanks  are  due  for  permission  to  reprint. 

After  a  few  of  these  essays  had  been  published,  some  phy- 
sicians wrote  and  spoke  to  me  of  the  desirability  of  continu- 
ing the  work  and  collecting  it  in  a  volume.  Altho  we  are 
supposed  to  have  a  psychological  prejudice  against  taking  ad- 
vice, I  regarded  this  proposition  with  favor.  I  am  glad  to 
say  that  among  the  physicians  who  made  the  suggestion  to 
me,  was  the  Nestor  of  American  Medicine,  Professor  Abra- 
ham Jacobi.  Dr  Jacobi  has  likewise  been  generous  enough 
to  write  the  Introduction.  He  himself  is  thoroly  versed  in 
the  history  of  medicine,  as  can  be  seen  by  consulting  the  eight 
excellent  volumes  of  '  COLLECTANEA  JACOBI.' 

In  my  opinion  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  done  more  for 
the  intellectual  uplift  of  the  human  race  than  all  other  move- 
ments combined.  Its  chief  pioneers  were  Darwin,  Huxley, 
Spencer,  Tyndall,  Wallace,  Haeckel.  Out  of  this  group  only 
Wallace  and  Haeckel  survive.  Wallace,  unfortunately,  has 
gone  over  to  the  enemy  —  he  has  become  a  spiritualist ;  there 

5 


6  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

remains  to  us,  therefore,  only  Professor  Haeckel,  the  boldest 
and  most  effective  fighter  of  them  all,  and  no  incident  con- 
nected with  the  making  of  my  book  has  given  me  quite  so 
much  gratification  as  his  willingness  to  receive  the  dedication. 

I  desire  to  express  my  thanks  to  Dr  Eva  Helen  Knight  for 
her  kindness  in  performing  an  arduous  task  —  reading  the 
proofs  of  this  volume.  Sometimes  I  think  it  is  easier  to  write 
a  book  than  afterwards  to  wrestle  with  the  printer's  proof. 

V.  R. 

New  York,  August  16,  1912. 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  question  whether  it  is  history  that  makes  men,  or  men 
that  make  history,  has  often  been  raised,  but  has  never  been 
answered  to  everyone's  satisfaction.  In  most  of  the  histories 
of  nations  that  repose  in  our  libraries,  ample  credit  is  given 
to  warriors  and  kings  and  destroyers.  But  the  slowly  de- 
veloping culture  of  the  masses,  not  sung  in  epics,  does  not 
come  in  for  its  share  of  appreciation  any  more  than  the  multi- 
tude of  drops  which  hollow  the  rock.  Still  it  is  the  quiet 
work  of  eras  extending  over  tens  of  thousands  of  years  that 
has  brought  about  advancement  without  abrupt  jumps. 

Our  experience  is  quite  different  in  connection  with  arts  and 
sciences,  for  in  arts  and  sciences  it  is  individual  brains  and 
exertions  that  have  created  sudden  wonders  which  caused  per- 
manent changes  in  knowledge  and  convictions,  and  resulted 
in  practical  reforms  and  revolutions. 

In  America  the  history  of  medicine  is  almost  never  taught, 
and  as  long  as  our  universities  do  not  teach  it,  the  pupils  feel 
encouraged  to  neglect  it. 

We  have  no  journal  devoted  to  the  history  of  medicine,  and 
our  books  on  the  subject  are  few,  and  are  not  on  as  many 
shelves  as  they  should  be  —  or  are  shelved  too  soon.  We 
have  only  John  Watson's  The  Medical  Profession  in  Ancient 
Times;  The  Nose  and  Throat  in  Medical  History  by  Jonathan 
Wright;  Alvin  A.  Hubbells'  The  Development  of  Ophthal- 
mology in  America;  Samuel  D.  Gross'  Lives  of  Eminent 
American  Physicians  and  Surgeons;  A  Century  of  American 
Medicine  by  Clarke,  Bigelow,  Gross,  Thomas  and  Billings; 
the  valuable  works  of  Packard  and  Mumford,  and  a  very 
few  others. 

To  this  list  of  works  on  medical  history  has  now  been 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION 

added  Victor  Robinson's  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE.  The 
tales  of  men  who  were  epoch-makers  have  been  collected  in  the 
fifteen  essays  of  this  book.  Their  names  have  all  become 
historical,  and  are  immortal.  That  one  of  them  should  have 
been  burned,  and  one  driven  insane,  and  several  others  abused 
and  reviled,  proves  only  their  power  to  stir  the  passions  of  ex- 
isting ignorance,  and  thru  their  martyrdom  to  initiate  new 
eras. 

I  deem  it  a  privilege  to  have  read  these  essays  before  they 
were  printed  in  this  shape.  I  consider  it  an  honor  to  be  per- 
mitted to  preface  this  book  which  will  prove  a  source  of 
instruction  and  edification  both  to  the  profession  and  the  pub- 
lic at  large.  The  author's  facts  as  related  are  absolutely  cor- 
rect, and  the  warm-hearted  sympathy  with  which  the  reports 
of  bygone  times  and  men  are  drawn  up,  will  arouse  the 
reader's  enthusiasm  and  gratitude. 

£ 

New  York. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

LETTER  FROM  ERNST  HAECKEL 4 

INTRODUCTION  BY  ABRAHAM  JACOBI 7 

GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE 13 

ARET^US,  THE  FORGOTTEN  PHYSICIAN 33 

PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE 45 

SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR  ....      ....     65 

VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST 79 

PARE,  THE  SURGEON 95 

SCHEELE,   THE   APOTHECARY 119 

CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST 141 

HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER 169 

JENNER  AND  VACCINATION 193 

LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION 217 

SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM 235 

SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN 249 

SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN 275 

DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE 307 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  SEMMELWEIS  MONUMENT,  BUDAPEST     .     .     Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 
GALEN 24 

^SCULAPIUS 4O 

PARACELSUS 56 

SERVETUS 72 

VESALIUS 88 

PARE 104 

SCHEELE 128 

CAVENDISH 152 

HUNTER 176 

JENNER 200 

LAENNEC 224 

SIMPSON 240 

SCHLEIDEN 288 

SCHWANN 296 

DARWIN 312 


I       (130-200  A.  D.) 
GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE 

I  have  long  since  finished,  divine  Caesar,  the  abridgement  of  the  books 
of  Galen,  which  you  charged  me  to  make,  during  our  residence  in  the 
nearer  Gaul.  You  deigned  to  express  your  satisfaction  on  the  subject, 
and  you  enjoined  upon  me,  at  the  same  time,  another  work  —  that  of 
reducing  to  a  single  volume,  all  that  the  most  illustrious  physicians  have 
taught,  of  utility,  on  the  Healing  Art.  I  have,  therefore,  resolved  to 
gratify  you  according  to  my  abilities.  I  shall  be  careful  to  omit  nothing 
of  what  Galen  has  said,  because  he  is,  of  all  those  who  have  written  on 
these  matters,  the  one  who  has  treated  his  subjects  with  most  clearness, 
reason,  and  method.  Moreover  he  shows  himself  the  faithful  interpreter 
of  the  principles  and  sentiments  of  Hippocrates. 

ORIBASIUS:  to  Julian  the  Apostate. 

WE  may  judge  a  man  by  the  company  he  keeps,  by  the 
books  he  reads,  perhaps  even  by  the  clothes  he  wears,  but 
not  by  the  woman  he  marries.  Take  Nikon,  for  instance:  a 
quiet  man,  a  mathematician  and  a  philosopher,  asking  for 
nothing  but  to  be  left  in  peace  among  his  parchments  —  but 
what  a  wife  he  had !  Such  a  bawling  virago,  biting  her  maids 
and  tormenting  her  husband,  that  all  who  saw  her  declared 
Xantippe  a  paragon  of  patience  by  comparison.  And  Xant- 
ippe  had  reason  for  her  lip-labor,  because  Socrates  made  no 
money,  while  Nikon  was  a  wealthy  man. 

But  Nikon  had  one  consolation:  his  son,  Claudius  Galenus, 
It  is  true,  at  times  the  lad  exhibited  a  hasty  temper,  but 
above  all  he  was  studious.  Galen  hated  his  noisy  mother,  but 
loved  his  thoughtful  father.  Nikon  fed  the  boy  on  a  stimula- 
ting diet  that  has  never  been  equaled:  Greek  philosophy. 
Geologists  tell  us  that  the  earth  has  cooled  —  so  has  the  hu- 
man mind.  The  ancient  Greeks  will  forever  remain  the  in- 
tellectual wonders  of  the  world.  It  was  not  sufficient  to  tell 
young  Epicurus  that  all  things  came  from  Chaos,  for  he  then 
asked,  '  And  whence  came  Chaos  ? '  When  a  Greek  philoso- 
pher gazed  at  the  sea  or  the  sky,  he  uttered  epigrams  which 

15 


16  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

will  be  repeated  by  the  lips  of  time  till  the  waters  go  dry  and 
the  firmament  passes  away. 

By  the  time  Galen  was  seventeen  years  of  age  he  knew  the 
stoic,  platonic,  peripatetic  and  epicurean  systems,  and  had  al- 
ready composed  a  commentary  on  the  dialectics  of  Chrysippus ; 
he  resolved  to  consecrate  himself  to  the  pursuit  of  knowledge, 
and  when  he  read  how  a  citizen  of  Megara  risked  his  life  in 
order  to  listen  to  Sacrates,  he  hoped  that  some  day  he  too 
would  be  able  to  sacrifice  something  for  the  sake  of  philosophy, 
or  at  least  be  able  to  exclaim  with  Anaxagoras,  '  To  philoso- 
phy I  owe  my  worldly  ruin,  and  my  soul's  prosperity.' 

But  one  night  yEsculapius  appeared  to  Nikon  and  warned 
him  that  his  son  must  devote  himself  to  medicine.  It  seems  that 
a  mathematician,  may  be  a  mystic,  for  Nikon  believed  in 
dreams;  the  son  likewise  accepted  the  omen,  and  henceforth 
Hippocrates  meant  even  more  to  him  than  Plato;  Claudius 
Galenus  thus  fulfilled  Aristotle's  maxim,  '  The  philosopher 
should  end  with  medicine  —  the  physician  commence  with 
philosophy.' ' 

In  Pergamus,  Asia  Minor,  where  the  family  of  Nikon  lived, 
was  a  school  of  medicine,  and  a  library  that  made  Alexandria 
envious.  Indeed,  the  second  Ptolemy  was  ignoble  enough  to 
decree  that  no  more  papyrus  should  be  exported  from  Egypt  in 
order  to  keep  Pergamus  from  adding  more  manuscripts  to  its 
archives,  but  the  Pergamene  people  took  splendid  revenge  by 
inventing  parchment. 

But  Pergamus  was  chiefly  celebrated  for  its  shrine  to  the 
healing  god.  According  to  Lucian,  Jupiter  was  complaining 
that  his  altars  were  deserted  since  Apollo  set  up  his  oracle  at 
Delphi,  and  Jisculapius  opened  shop  at  Pergamus.  At  Epi- 
darus  and  Cos  the  Asklepions  were  equally  successful  —  in 
spite  of  the  satires  of  Aristophanes.  Always  craftier  than  the 
populace,  the  priests  built  the  temples  of  ^Esculapius  in  spots 
favored  by  nature  —  in  the  midst  of  a  health-giving  forest,  by 
the  side  of  a  medicinal  spring,  on  the  brow  of  a  lofty  hill.  The 
sight  alone  often  served  to  bring  the  first  smile  of  hope  to  the 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  17 

weary  invalid  —  and  patients  who  seemed  too  sick  were  not 
permitted  to  approach  the  sacred  precincts.  All  the  glories  of 
Greek  art  were  there  —  lovely  Venus  and  laughing  Bacchus, 
Zeus  serene  on  his  golden  throne,  and  ^sculapius  sorrowing 
for  the  ills  of  mankind.  Fountains  played  in  the  shaded 
groves,  and  shelter-seats  were  arranged  in  semi-circles  of  pure 
marble.  And  when  hidden  music  floated  over  the  southern 
flowers  —  the  mingling  of  rhythm  and  perfume,  the  marriage 
of  fragrance  and  melody  —  many  sufferers  raised  their  heads 
to  repeat  the  prophecy  of  the  Delphic  sibyl :  Oh,  ^Esculapius, 
thou  art  born  to  be  the  world's  great  joy. 

Only  after  he  had  undergone  a  course  in  dietetics  and  hy- 
giene, did  the  gates  of  the  temple  open  for  the  pilgrim;  but 
that  night  he  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  statue  of  ^sculapius,  await- 
ing and  expecting  a  cure.  At  times,  when  the  snores  of  the 
patient  were  echoed  back  by  the  marble  walls,  the  priests  would 
steal  noiselessly  forth  and  bind  a  broken  limb  or  anoint  a 
wounded  organ.  Of  course  every  temple  rang  with  tales  of 
wonderful  cures.  Who  ever  heard  of  a  shrine  —  tho  it  be 
built  above  the  bones  of  an  ass  —  that  did  not  report  miracles, 
and  exhibit  abandoned  crutches  and  votive  offerings  as  proof? 
A  mortal  like  Socrates  refused  remuneration  for  his  teach- 
ings, but  ^Esculapius  demanded  silver  and  gold  for  his  serv- 
ices —  at  least  so  the  priests  claimed.  Indeed,  on  one  oc- 
casion, the  god  so  far  forgot  himself  as  to  say  aloud  to  a 
patient,  '  Thou  art  healed,  now  pay  the  fee.' 

But  an  Asklepion  afforded  excellent  opportunities  to  the 
right  man,  and  during  an  epidemic  of  carbuncles,  when  ulcera- 
tion  laid  bare  the  structures  beneath,  Galen  studied  anatomy. 
But  what  did  this  intelligent  and  well-trained  youth  think  of 
the  wonder-tales  of  divine  cures  which  were  bruited  about? 
He  believed  these  stories  implicitly,  for  credulity,  like  tuber- 
culosis, is  universal. 

In  his  twentieth  year  Galen  learnt  the  limits  of  the  physi- 
cians' power:  they  could  not  save  his  father.  He  then  left 
Pergamus,  to  pursue  his  studies  in  various  cities,  for  the 


18  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

conquests  of  Alexander  had  dispersed  Greek  culture  far  and 
wide.  Galen  journeyed  to  Smyrna,  where  he  became  a  pupil 
of  Pelops,  who  was  an  authority  on  muscles;  at  Corinth  he 
studied  under  the  anatomist  Numisianus;  he  traveled  thru 
Asia  Minor  and  Palestine,  everywhere  absorbing  knowledge 
and  performing  autopsies  with  enthusiasm. 

But  Alexandria  called  to  him;  in  those  days  the  Hellenic 
capital  of  Egypt  was  the  chief  seat  of  Hellenic  learning;  the 
seeds  from  the  tree  of  Hippocratism  had  fallen  and  blossomed 
in  Pharaoh's  land.  In  Alexandria  Galen  found  himself  en- 
gulfed in  a  vortex;  all  currents  of  medical  thought  circled 
around  and  whirled  on  into  the  eddy  of  dialectic  subtility; 
dozens  of  sects  argued  violently;  all  schools  pressed  their 
claims  in  eloquent  debate:  dogmatists,  methodists,  pneumat- 
ists,  eclectics.  Some  swore  by  Hippocrates ;  others  by  Heroph- 
ilus;  others  by  Erasistratus ;  Diocles,  Praxagoras,  Calli- 
machus,  Dioscorides,  all  had  their  adherents.  Clinical  observ- 
ations were  neglected  for  experiments  in  rhetoric;  it  was 
enough  to  make  one  think  of  the  tombstone-epitaph  that  Pliny 
loved  to  quote :  '  He  died  by  reason  of  the  confusion  of  the 
doctors.' 

Galen  was  not  the  man  to  allow  himself  to  be  long  per- 
plexed by  the  wrangling  of  rival  physicians.  Physically  buoy- 
ant and  healthy,  gifted  with  genius,  contemptuous  of  others 
and  with  boundless  confidence  in  himself,  he  selected  from 
each  sect  what  appealed  to  him,  rejected  the  rest,  and  built 
up  a  system  of  his  own.  Fortunately  he  was  wise  enough  to 
take  as  his  model  the  incomparable  Hippocrates.  Galen's 
ability  was  vast  and  his  industry  unwearied;  he  soon  learnt 
all  that  teachers  could  impart.  Before  he  completed  his  teens 
he  began  to  write  on  medical  topics,  and  during  his  journeys 
treatise  after  treatise  fell  from  his  prolific  pen.  Galen  was 
absent  from  his  native  place  for  nine  years;  at  about  the  age 
of  twenty-eight  he  returned,  and  the  bronzed  and  cultured 
traveler  was  welcomed  by  the  high  priest  of  Pergamus  who 
appointed  him  physician  to  the  gladiators. 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  19 

The  occurrence  of  the  gladiatorial  combats  was  evidence  that 
Hellas  had  fallen :  the  stern  games  in  which  strong  men  hewed 
each  other  with  spears;  the  bloody  battles  by  torchlight;  the 
strange  animals,  captured  from  African  forests,  charging 
against  their  tormentors ;  the  fantastic  fighting  between  dwarfs 
and  women;  the  whole  excited  assembly  rising  and  shouting 
as  rivers  of  blood  flowed  thru  arena  and  amphitheater;  pain 
and  fear  below,  and  lust  and  luxury  above, — Ave,  Caesar; 
morituri  te  salutant!  —  in  this  manner  the  Romans,  but  not 
the  Greeks,  amused  themselves. 

For  four  years  Galen  tended  the  wounded  gladiators;  in 
this  employment  he  acquired  an  extensive  knowledge  of  sur- 
gery, and  his  methods  of  treatment  proved  unusually  success- 
ful. But  Galen  was  not  content  with  Pergamus;  he  wanted 
Rome.  A  province  in  lesser  Asia  was  insufficient  for  a  medi- 
cus  who  felt  himself  greater  than  all  other  physicians ;  as  well 
have  expected  Aristotle  —  Nature's  private  secretary,  as  Euse- 
bius  called  him  —  to  hide  his  talents  at  Stagira.  To  show 
off  his  superior  attainments,  Claudius  Galenus  needed  the  cen- 
ter of  the  world's  stage;  aware  of  his  power,  and  consumed 
with  ambition,  he  hungered  and  thirsted  for  the  streets  of  the 
wicked  but  mighty  capital. 

Rome,  the  great  plagiarist,  never  had  a  medicine  of  her 
own.  Rome  was  notorious  for  her  hatred  of  doctors.  Pliny, 
author  of  the  dictum  that  a  doctor  is  the  only  person  not  pun- 
ished for  murder,  has  left  it  on  record  that  for  six  hundred 
years  the  Romans  knew  no  physicians.  But  gradually  Greek 
physicians  settled  in  Rome,  and  the  men  of  Mars  seemed  to 
grow  accustomed  to  the  extravagance.  But  the  tradition  re- 
m'ained,  and  Pliny  wrote,  '  The  dignity  of  the  Roman  does  not 
permit  him  to  make  a  profession  of  medicine,  and  the  few 
Romans  who  begin  to  study  it  are  venal  renegades  to  the 
Greeks.'  Pliny's  contemporary,  Valerius  Martial,  composed 
medical  epigrams  for  the  delight  of  his  sturdy  countryman: 

Languid  I  lay,  and  thou  earnest  O  Symmachus,  quickly  to  see  nte; 
Quickly  thou  earnest  and  with  thee  a  hundred  medical  students; 


20  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

The  hundred  pawed  me  all  over  with  hands  congealed  by  the  north  wind ; 
Ague  before  I  had  none,  but  now,  by  Apollo,  I  have  it! 

In  the  year  162  a  stranger  entered  Rome  —  it  was  Galen. 
In  the  midst  of  the  barbers,  bath-keepers,  midwives,  magicians, 
plaster-spreaders,  ointment-makers,  bleeders,  cuppers,  abor- 
tionists, makers  of  love-philters,  venders  of  amulets,  had  come 
a  disciple  of  Hippocrates.  Specialism  was  rife  in  Rome,  as 
we  learn  from  Martial's  irony :  '  Cascellius  extracts  and  re- 
pairs bad  teeth;  you,  Hyginus,  cauterise  ingrowing  eyelashes; 
Fannius  cures  a  relaxed  uvula  without  cutting;  Eros  removes 
brand-marks  from  slaves;  Hermes  is  a  very  Podalirius  for 
ruptures.' 

But  Galen  was  a  specialist  in  all  branches,  and  panted  only 
for  an  opportunity  to  diagnose  the  disease  of  a  senator  or 
praetor  —  and  thus  win  fame  and  fortune  at  a  stroke.  Among 
his  first  patients  was  Eudemus,  a  peripatetic  philosopher  of  re- 
nown. The  wife  of  the  consul  Bcethus  was  sick;  Galen  cured 
her,  and  received  the  consul's  friendship,  four  hundred  gold 
pieces,  and  a  reputation.  A  noble  Roman  matron,  the  wife 
of  Justus,  could  not  sleep ;  her  case  baffled  all  the  physicians ; 
but  Galen  traced  her  insomnia  to  her  love  for  the  dancer 
Pylades. 

Galen  did  not  make  diagnoses  merely  by  feeling  the  pulse; 
he  studied  not  only  the  disease,  but  the  patient,  and  he  took 
considerable  pleasure  in  proclaiming  that  much  of  his  suc- 
cess was  due  to  his  ability  to  take  advantage  of  an  opportu- 
nity :  he  would  observe  what  was  in  a  vessel  that  a  servant  was 
carrying  out,  or  what  was  contained  in  the  jar  that  stood  near 
the  invalid.  Evidently  he  was  the  spiritual  ancestor  of  that 
physician  who  berated  his  patient  for  eating  horse-flesh,  and 
when  questioned  by  his  assistant  how  he  knew  this  to  be  the 
case,  answered,  '  I  saw  the  harness  under  the  bed.' 

It  was  not  long  before  Galen  became  the  most  distinguished 
practitioner  in  Rome.  He  was  called  the  wonder-worker  — 
Paradoxopreus.  Galen  did  not  accept  the  title  with  blush- 
ing cheek  and  downcast  eye.  The  conceit  which  enabled  him 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  £1 

to  say,  '  Whoever  seeks  fame  need  only  become  familiar  with 
all  that  I  have  achieved/  was  thick  enough  to  protect  him  from 
embarrassment  at  any  compliment.  Not  only  did  the  boast- 
ful Galen  praise  himself  unceasingly,  but  he  mocked  all  his 
rivals  with  a  scornful  tongue;  he  called  them  fools  and  asses, 
and  told  them  they  did  not  know  anything. 

'  I  have  done  as  much  to  medicine,'  wrote  Galen,  '  as  Trajan 
did  to  the  Roman  Empire,  in  making  bridges  and  roads  thru- 
out  Italy.  It  is  I  alone  that  have  pointed  out  the  true  method 
of  treating  diseases :  it  must  be  confessed,  that  Hippocrates 
had  already  chalked  out  the  same  road,  but  as  the  first  dis- 
coverer, he  has  not  gone  so  far  as  we  could  wish ;  his  writings 
are  defective  in  order,  in  the  necessary  distinctions;  his 
knowledge  in  some  subjects  is  not  sufficiently  extensive;  he  is 
often  obscure  after  the  manner  of  the  ancients,  in  order  to  be 
concise;  he  opened  the  road,  but  I  have  rendered  it  passable.' 
Some  figures  of  antiquity  appear  hardly  human:  the  white- 
robed  Plato,  broad  of  brow  and  ever-thoughtful,  slowly  pac- 
ing down  the  shadeful  aisles  of  the  Academic  Grove,  seems 
more  like  a  personification  of  philosophy  than  a  man,  but 
Claudius  Galenus  had  qualities  like  our  next-door  neighbors. 

The  leaders  of  Roman  society  requested  Galen  to  establish 
a  course  of  lectures  on  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  which  he 
gladly  did,  illustrating  them  with  experiments  on  goats  and 
pigs.  The  elite  crowded  to  these  demonstrations,  and  were 
pleased  to  be  informed  that  they  possessed  more  common  sense 
than  the  physicians. 

At  Alexandria  Galen  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  witness 
two  human  skeletons,  and  he  strongly  urged  all  who  intended 
to  study  osteology  to  go  to  Africa.  But  at  his  lectures  a  hu- 
man skeleton  was  never  exhibited,  for  the  good  reason  that 
there  was  not  a  single  one  in  all  Rome.  So  bloodthirsty  were 
the  Romans  of  this  period,  that  neither  the  populace  nor  the 
fashionables  could  enjoy  a  holiday  unless  contending  ranks  of 
gladiators  were  butchered  for  their  sport,  but  they  recoiled 
with  horror  at  the  notion  of  permitting  a  scientist  to  examine 


23,  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

the  murdered  corpse.  In  this  respect  the  Romans  resembled 
a  small  and  persecuted  sect  —  despised  by  Galen  —  which  was 
just  rising  into  prominence  at  this  time,  but  which  was  later 
to  overrun  all  Europe  and  forbid  dissection  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  impious  to  mutilate  the  image  of  God,  and  yet  showed 
no  hesitancy  in  crushing  the  bones  or  burning  the  bodies  of 
thousands  of  heretics.  The  psychology  of  inconsistency  is 
tragically  interesting. 

For  four  years  Galen  resided  at  Rome,  writing  many  of  the 
works  which  have  perpetuated  his  name:  he  worked  as  hard 
as  he  bragged.  '  There  are  many  physicians,'  declared  Galen, 
'  like  the  athletes,  who  would  like  to  win  prizes  in  the  Olympic 
games,  and  yet  will  not  take  the  pains  necessary  to  gain  them. 
For  they  are  loud  in  their  praises  of  Hippocrates,  and  place 
him  in  the  highest  rank  among  physicians ;  yet  never  think  of 
imitating  him  themselves.  It  is  certainly  no  small  advantage 
on  our  side  to  live  at  the  present  day,  and  to  have  received 
from  our  ancestors  the  arts  already  brought  to  such  a  degree 
of  perfection;  and  it  would  seem  an  easy  thing  for  us,  after 
learning  in  a  short  time  everything  that  Hippocrates  discov- 
ered by  many  years  of  labor,  to  employ  the  rest  of  our  lives 
in  investigating  what  still  remains  unknown/ 

In  the  year  166  it  was  practically  certain  that  he  was  to  be 
admitted  into  the  imperial  court.  Yet  it  was  at  this  very  time 
that  he  secretly  left  the  capital.  Galen  claimed  he  so  acted  be- 
cause he  feared  his  envious  rivals  had  decided  to  assassinate 
him.  But  the  truth  seems  to  be  that  he  left  Rome  because 
an  epidemic  had  come.  Rome,  with  its  usual  intrigues,  was 
bad  enough ;  but  Rome,  with  an  eastern  pestilence  added,  was 
too  much  for  the  Pergamene  physician.  Galen  was  too  selfish 
to  die  for  others.  In  those  days  there  were  real  plagues :  this 
one  spread  over  Europe,  infected  everything  in  its  wide  path, 
and  remained  for  fifteen  years,  slaughtering  men  and  animals 
by  the  million,  terrorizing  the  world  into  a  mad-house  and  a 
morgue,  ^sculapius  must  have  been  sleeping. 

Galen  set  his  face  toward  home,  studying  all  the  way ;  from 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  23 

the  copper  mines  of  Cyprus  he  collected  medicinal  ores,  Balm 
of  Gilead  at  Palestine,  asphalt  from  the  Dead  Sea,  and  many 
drugs  in  Phoenicia.  At  last  he  stood  once  more  in  the  fertile 
valley  of  Pergamus ;  he  remained  there  about  a  year.  But  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  had  a  habit  of  recalling  their  famous 
sons  almost  as  soon  as  they  were  out  of  sight.  Half  the  il- 
lustrious men  of  Athens  and  Rome  were  exiled  and  invited  to 
return.  The  emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  summoned  Galen  to 
his  side.  Marcus  Aurelius  was  at  Aquileia,  preparing  to  wage 
war  against  the  Marcomanni,  tho  he  would  much  have  pre- 
ferred to  be  in  his  study,  writing  his  Meditations.  When 
Galen  arrived  in  the  camp,  the  flesh- fed  plague  was  thinning 
the  army,  and  the  emperor  and  his  soldiers  fled  back  to  Rome. 
On  setting  out  a  second  time  against  the  enemy,  Marcus  Aur- 
elius desired  Galen  to  be  his  companion,  but  the  physician  in- 
formed his  ruler  that  in  a  dream  ^Esculapius  had  warned  him 
to  remain  at  Rome  and  attend  the  emperor's  children.  And 
sure  enough,  little  Commodus  soon  became  sick,  and  Galen 
performed  the  doubtful  service  of  saving  a  creature  that  be- 
came one  of  the  most  infamous  of  the  hideous  Roman  em- 
perors. But  Faustina,  the  mother  of  the  monster,  was  pleased, 
and  she  thanked  Galen  heartily,  and  crooned  into  the  ear  of 
her  child  that  one  day  he  would  wear  the  purple. 

Upon  the  decease  of  Demetrius,  Galen  was  appointed  court 
physician,  but  he  had  considerable  time  for  scientific  work,  as 
his  chief  duty  consisted  in  preparing  for  Marcus  Aurelius  a 
costly  treacle,  a  supposed  antidote  against  all  poisons.  In  the 
days  of  imperial  Rome  such  precautions  were  not  superfluous, 
but  what  the  mixture  really  contained  we  cannot  say,  as  its 
principal  constituents  were  immersed  in  a  flood  of  polyphar- 
macy. 

In  175  Marcus  Aurelius  succeeded  in  subduing  the  fierce 
Marcomanni,  and  returned  to  the  capital.  Of  course  a  tri- 
umphant emperor  must  be  feasted,  and  the  Romans  were  cham- 
pion gluttons  with  extraordinary  alimentary  canals,  but  the 
scholarly  Aurelius  was  really  a  transplanted  Greek  whose  or- 


S4  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

dinary  stomach  gave  way  under  the  endless  courses.  Poor 
Marcus  needed  all  his  stoic  philosophy  to  keep  him  from  groan- 
ing, and  he  sent  for  several  physicians.  A  physician's  function 
is  to  administer  medicines,  and  they  did  so,  but  their  drugs  did 
not  avail.  Galen  was  sent  for,  but  we  must  allow  him  to  re- 
late the  incident  in  his  characteristic  style: 

'  Hereupon  I  was  summoned  also  to  spend  the  night  in  the 
palace,  a  messenger  coming  to  fetch  me,  by  order  of  the  em- 
peror, just  as  the  lamps  were  being  lighted.  Three  physicians 
had  seen  him  in  the  morning  and  at  the  eighth  hour,  and  two 
had  felt  his  pulse,  whilst  to  all  did  it  appear  the  beginning  of 
an  attack.  I,  however,  remained  silent;  then  the  emperor, 
perceiving  me,  asked  why  I  had  not,  like  the  others,  felt  his 
pulse.  I  replied:  Two  have  already  done  this,  and  from 
their  experience  upon  the  journey  with  thee  are  better  able  to 
judge  of  its  present  condition.  As  I  said  this  he  called  on  me 
to  feel  him,  and  as  the  pulse,  taking  into  consideration  the  age 
and  constitution  of  the  patient,  seemed  to  me  inconsistent 
with  an  attack  of  fever,  I  declared  that  none  was  to  be  feared, 
but  that  the  stomach  was  overloaded  with  nourishment  which 
had  been  coated  with  phlegm.  This  diagnosis  called  forth 
his  praise  and  he  thrice  repeated :  Yes,  that  is  it,  it  is  exactly 
as  thou  sayest;  I  feel  that  cold  food  is  disagreeing  with  me. 
He  then  asked  me  what  was  to  be  done.  I  answered  him 
frankly  that  if  another  than  he  had  been  the  patient,  I  should, 
following  my  custom,  have  given  him  wine  with  pepper. 
With  sovereigns  like  thyself,  however,  I  said,  physicians  are 
in  the  habit  of  employing  the  least  drastic  remedies,  therefore 
it  must  suffice  to  apply  wool  saturated  with  warm  spikenard 
upon  the  abdomen.  The  emperor  replied  that  warm  ointment 
on  purple  wool  was  his  usual  remedy  for  pain  in  the  stomach, 
and  called  Peitholaus  to  apply  it  while  he  bade  me  depart. 
No  sooner  had  I  gone  than  he  demanded  Sabine  wine,  threw 
pepper  into  it  and  drank,  after  which  he  said  to  Peitholaus 
that  now  at  last  he  had  a  physician  and  a  courageous  one, 
repeating  that  he  had  tried  many  but  that  I  was  the  first 


GALEN 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  26 

of    physicians    and    the    only    philosopher    amongst    them.' 

Of  all  the  old  dietitians,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  ancient  physicians  paid  much  attention  to  food, —  Athe- 
naeus  being  enthusiastic  enough  to  remark  that  a  good  physician 
ought  to  be  a  good  cook, —  Galen  was  by  far  the  greatest. 
There  is  indeed  little  in  the  realm  of  dietetics,  from  pistachio 
nuts  to  the  flesh  of  buck-goats,  that  was  not  considered  by 
him;  and  the  diet  fitting  to  the  different  seasons,  the  diet  of 
persons  actively  employed,  the  diet  of  travelers,  the  regimen 
for  infants  and  for  the  aged,  repletion  and  easy  methods  to 
produce  vomiting,  are  only  a  few  of  the  dietetical  topics  which 
he  discussed  sagaciously.  Of  course  he  gave  directions  for 
reducing  obesity,  but  if  he  had  any  success  in  this  respect,  he 
knew  an  elegant  art  that  is  lost  to  the  moderns. 

He  stood  high  as  an  hygienist;  he  was  the  man  to  consult 
on  questions  of  baths  and  gymnastics;  his  work  among  the 
gladiators  made  him  a  leading  authority  on  exercise.  He 
was  the  founder  of  climatic  cures,  and  ever  since  then,  wealthy 
women  have  been  asking,  '  Doctor,  what  disease  must  I  have 
in  order  to  go  to  Ostend  ?  ' 

On  fevers,  and  everything  connected  with  febrile  affections, 
whether  ephemeral,  bilious,  putrid,  hectic,  tertian,  quatran  or 
quotidian,  Galen  was  the  chief  fountain-head  of  wisdom.  Re- 
garding the  plague,  however,  he  had  little  to  say;  perhaps  his 
conscience  was  pricked,  for  he  had  only  to  open  Thucydides 
to  see  how  Grecian  physicians  perished  at  their  posts  during 
the  epidemic  at  Athens. 

Such  homely  subjects  as  corns  and  callouses,  burns  and 
blisters,  coughing  and  sneezing,  a  bruised  nail,  headache,  tooth- 
ache, baldness,  bleeding  of  the  nose,  loss  of  eyelashes,  wrinkles 
and  freckles,  Galen  treated  with  sense  and  skill.  He  wrote 
good  descriptions  of  jaundice,  colic,  dropsy,  asthma,  coryza, 
dysentery;  and  on  such  diverse  maladies  as  diseases  of  the 
teeth,  ulcers,  wounds  of  nerves,  scirrhus,  herpes,  gangrene, 
erysipelas  and  emphysema,  he  was  the  chief  authority  of  classic 
antiquity. 


«6  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

As  far  as  we  know  he  was  the  only  one  of  the  ancients  who 
wrote  a  treatise  on  feigned  diseases;  he  was  the  first  to  treat 
of  aneurism ;  he  wrote  seventeen  chapters  on  the  pulse ;  he  was 
the  first  who  realized  the  importance  of  predisposition  to  dis- 
ease ;  he  based  his  prognosis  upon  diagnosis ;  he  paid  much  at- 
tention to  secretions  and  excretions;  it  is  claimed  that  his 
ophthalmic  collyria  could  be  consulted  with  advantage  by 
present-day  oculists;  he  knew  that  phthisis  was  infectious,  say- 
ing, '  It  is  a  matter  of  experience  that  those  who  sleep  in  the 
same  bed  with  consumptives  fall  into  consumption,  also  those 
who  live  long  with  them,  eat  and  drink  with  them,  or  wear 
their  clothes  and  linen/ 

In  obstetrics  Galen  did  not  distinguish  himself;  the  great 
obstetrician  and  gynaecologist  of  antiquity  was  Soranus  of 
Ephesus.  Galen  spoke  of  two  uterine  cavities,  the  right  for 
the  male  fetus,  and  the  left  for  the  female, —  which  causes  us 
to  suspect  that  he  never  examined  a  woman's  womb.  Galen, 
however,  did  make  some  meritorious  investigations  into  the 
causes  of  sterility.  As  a  surgeon,  Galen  did  not  equal  his  con- 
temporary, Antyllus. 

As  a  writer  on  Materia  Medica  he  cannot  rank  with  Dios- 
corides,  but  he  was  second  to  him  alone.  It  has  been  calcu- 
lated that  Galen's  Materia  Medica  consisted  of  540  plants,  180 
animal,  and  100  mineral  substances. 

He  was  a  prolific  writer  on  pharmacy;  he  wrote  so  much 
about  plasters  that  if  he  had  been  an  ordinary  worker  he  would 
not  have  had  time  for  anything  else.  The  preparation  of 
medicines  by  physical  means  is  still  called  galenical  pharmacy, 
but  it  is  not  clear  why  he  has  been  honored  with  the  title  of 
Father  of  Pharmacy. 

Reaching  the  outposts  of  the  knowledge  of  Herophilus  and 
Erasistratus,  and  advancing  indisputably  beyond  them,  Galen 
stood  without  a  rival  as  an  anatomist.  He  was  practically 
the  creator  of  morphology,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
unlike  the  older  Alexandrian  masters,  he  had  no  opportunity 
to  explore  the  human  body;  his  scalpel  was  confined  chiefly 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  37 

to  apes,  but  he  used  all  animals  he  could  obtain,  from  elephants 
to  mice.  The  Father  of  Anatomy  never  dissected  a  man. 
Galen  must  have  been  seized  with  envy  when  he  read  in  Celsus 
that  in  the  days  of  the  Ptolemies  not  only  did  the  Alexandrian 
scientists  have  all  the  corpses  they  needed,  but  that  they  re- 
ceived criminals  '  for  dissection  alive,  and  contemplated,  even 
while  they  breathed,  those  parts  which  nature  had  before  con- 
cealed.' 

To-day,  whoever  speaks  of  anatomy,  pays  tribute  to  Galen ; 
the  platysma  myoides,  says  the  modern  anatomist,  but  this 
muscle  was  first  named  and  described  by  the  Pergamene  phy- 
sician. The  frontalis  muscle,  the  popliteus,  the  two  muscles 
of  the  eyelids,  the  six  muscles  of  the  eyeball,  the  muscles  of 
the  spine,  the  muscles  of  each  lateral  cartilage  of  the  nose,  the 
maxillary  group  of  muscles,  with  many  muscles  of  the  head 
and  neck,  both  extremities  and  the  body  proper,  were  com- 
prised in  the  Galenian  myology,  and  in  many  instances  the 
names  which  he  suggested  have  been  retained  unto  the  pres- 
ent time. 

He  divided  the  vertebrae  into  cervical,  dorsal  and  lumbar, 
and  gave  a  correct  account  of  the  number  and  situation  of 
each.  He  named  the  bones  and  sutures  of  the  cranium,  and 
knew  the  squamous,  styloid,  mastoid  and  petrous  portions  of 
the  temporal  bones;  the  sphenoid,  the  ethmoid,  the  malar,  the 
maxillary  and  nasal  bones  were  familiar  to  him.  In  these  de- 
scriptions Galen  made  few  errors.  The  moderns  have  made 
little  change  in  his  osteology. 

Angiology  was  the  weakest  point  in  the  Galenic  structure 
of  anatomy,  but  even  here  he  built  better  than  his  contempo- 
raries, for  in  opposition  to  the  prevailing  views  of  the  age,  he 
proved  that  the  arteries  convey,  not  air,  but  blood.  He  was 
the  first  to  describe,  with  some  correctness,  the  aorta,  the 
jugular  vein,  and  the  three  coats  of  arteries.  We  are  not  in 
the  habit  of  thinking  that  the  capillary  connection  between  the 
arteries  and  veins  was  known  in  antiquity,  but  let  us  not  be 
startled  at  anything  that  we  find  among  the  Greeks :  Hippoc- 


28  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

rates  used  the  word  circulation,  and  Galen  knew  anastomosis. 
In  De  Usu  Partium  Galen  wrote :  '  The  arteries  and  veins 
anastomose  with  each  other  thruout  the  whole  body,  and  ex- 
change with  each  other  blood  and  spirits  by  certain  invisible 
and  exceedingly  minute  passages.' 

Galen's  contributions  to  neurology  were  noteworthy.  He 
knew  that  the  brain  is  the  central  organ  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, and  that  the  spinal  cord  is  an  offshoot,  but  he  made  the 
mistake  of  thinking  that  the  nerves  of  sensation  arise  in  the 
former,  and  the  nerves  of  motion  originate  in  the  latter.  His 
method  of  demonstrating  the  brain  was  a  masterpiece  of  mi- 
nuteness, and  he  traced  several  of  the  cranial  and  spinal  nerves 
with  accuracy.  '  If  the  spinal  cord,'  wrote  Galen,  '  be  divided 
lengthwise  from  above  downward  by  a  straight  section  thru 
the  median  line,  none  of  the  nerves  going  to  the  intercostal 
muscles  are  paralyzed,  either  on  one  side  or  the  other,  nor  any 
of  those  going  to  the  loins  or  the  lower  limbs.'  We  agree 
with  him  that  the  motor  fibers  do  not  cross  the  cord,  but  we 
wait  to  hear  what  he  will  say  as  to  the  effect  on  sensibility, 
but  he  was  silent,  and  seventeen  centuries  passed  before  the 
answer  came  that  a  longitudinal  section  of  the  cord  in  the 
median  line,  while  it  does  not  interfere  with  motion,  destroys 
sensibility.  The  nervous  system  was  his  favorite  field  of  in- 
vestigation, and  the  fruit  was  rich  enough  for  him  to  earn 
the  title  of  Founder  of  Experimental  Physiology. 

His  description  of  the  thoracic  contents  is  good, —  except 
that  he  thinks  the  heart  is  not  a  muscle  because  it  acts  con- 
tinuously, while  all  muscles  alternate  their  work  with  rest, — 
and  his  account  of  the  abdominal  organs  and  the  urinary  ap- 
paratus was  explicit  and  precise. 

We  have  yet  to  mention  that  he  discovered  or  was  the  first 
to  describe  the  tendon  Achilles,  the  lachrymal  ducts  and  glands, 
the  ductus  Botalli,  foramen  ovale,  the  corpus  callosum,  septum 
lucidum,  corpora  quadrigemina. 

Galen  was  an  explorer,  but  the  lands  that  lie  beyond  the 
seas  did  not  interest  him  like  the  unknown  regions  of  the 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  S9 

body ;  he  did  not  crave  to  discover  distant  kingdoms,  for  locked 
within  the  cranium  he  found  ample  treasures;  he  blazed  no 
path  in  primitive  forests,  but  all  thru  its  winding  labyrinths  he 
followed  the  trigeminal  nerve,  slowly  discovering  the  secrets 
that  were  strewn  along  its  tortuous  way.  Galen  adored  the 
mechanism  of  the  body;  he  was  filled  with  wonder  at  the  per- 
fection of  its  parts.  He  claimed  that  in  writing  anatomy  he 
was  really  celebrating  the  Creator;  again  and  again  the  great 
Pagan  physician  breaks  forth  into  paeans  of  praise :  '  In  writ- 
ing these  books  I  compose  a  true  and  real  hymn  to  that  awful 
Being  who  made  us  all ;  and,  in  my  opinion,  true  religion  con- 
sists not  so  much  in  costly  sacrifices  and  fragrant  perfumes 
offered  upon  his  altars,  as  a  thoro  conviction  of  his  unerring 
wisdom,  his  resistless  power,  and  his  all  diffusive  goodness.' 

An  extract  like  the  following  illustrates  Galen's  interest  and 
delight  in  the  body :  '  In  the  inner  cavity  of  the  larynx  there 
is  a  structure  of  peculiar  formation,  which  we  have  already 
shown  to  be  the  principal  organ  of  the  voice.  It  resembles  the 
mouthpiece  of  a  reed-pipe,  especially  when  seen  either  from 
above  or  from  below.  Instead,  however,  of  comparing  the 
glottis  with  the  tongue  of  reed  instruments,  it  would  be  more 
appropriate  to  compare  them  with  the  glottis.  For  the  works 
of  Nature  are  both  earlier  in  time,  and  more  perfect  in  con- 
struction, than  those  of  art;  and,  as  the  glottis  is  the  work  of 
Nature,  while  the  reed-pipe  is  the  production  of  art,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  the  latter  might  have  been  made  in  imitation  of  the 
glottis  by  some  clever  artist,  able  to  understand  and  copy  the 
structure  of  natural  objects.' 

His  teleological  proclivities  are  seen  in  passages  such  as 
these :  '  In  my  view  there  is  nothing  in  the  body  useless  or  in- 
active; but  all  parts  are  arranged  to  perform  their  offices  to- 
gether, and  have  been  endowed  by  the  Creator  with  specific 
powers.' 

We  regret  that  we  cannot  share  Galen's  convictions  in  these 
respects.  Man  is  compelled  to  perform  the  lowest  and  highest 
functions  in  life  with  the  same  organ,  and  was  it  nice  on 


30  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Nature's  part  to  place  the  womb  between  the  bladder  and  the 
rectum?  St  Augustine  was  no  physiologist,  but  he  was  vilely 
correct  when  he  said  that  we  are  born  between  urine  and  feces. 

Teleology  was  indeed  a  rotten  spot  in  Galenism.  Wise 
Anaxagoras  had  said  that  adaptation  to  function  disproves 
teleology,  but  Plato  and  Aristotle  believed  in  design  in  nature, 
and  Galen  followed  them,  and  erected  the  most  elaborate 
teleological  system  ever  known.  Hippocrates  approached 
questions  with  an  open  mind,  but  Galen  came  with  his  dogmas, 
and  sought  to  make  his  observations  fit  into  the  mold  of  pre- 
conceived notions.  His  practical  work  was  invaluable,  but 
most  of  his  theoretical  digressions  are  tedious  and  worthless. 
He  wrote  volumes  of  nonsensical  assumptions,  and  seemed  to 
suffer  from  an  Asiatic  imagination.  It  often  happened  that 
he  was  prevented  from  interpreting  his  results  correctly  be- 
cause of  his  predilection  for  a  priori  reasoning. 

Hippocrates  left  medicine  free,  but  Galen  fettered  it  with 
hypotheses.  Hippocrates  related  his  failures,  and  used  to 
say,  '  I  do  not  know,'  but  Galen  always  imitated  an  oracle. 
'  Science  and  Faith,'  said  Hippocrates,  '  are  two  things :  the 
first  begets  knowledge,  the  second  ignorance ;'  but  Galen  sought 
to  mix  the  observations  of  Hippocrates  with  the  metaphysics 
of  Plato.  Galen  abhorred  doubt;  his  mind  craved  for  finali- 
ties. Galen  admired  Euclid's  method  of  proving  things,  and 
he  tried  to  make  medicine  as  exact  a  science  as  geometry ;  it  is 
difficult  to  decide  which  was  the  greater  —  the  absurdity  or 
the  audacity  of  the  attempt.  In  his  system  everything  was 
explained;  everything  was  catalogued  and  tabulated.  He 
answered  all  questions,  he  solved  all  problems.  There  seemed 
nothing  left  for  others  to  do  except  to  say,  Amen.  And  so  it 
was.  Galen  was  the  last  of  the  Greeks,  and  when  he  spoke  no 
more,  the  voice  of  antiquity  was  hushed. 

Already  in  the  second  century  there  were  signs  of  the  com- 
ing darkness;  soon  the  imperial  city  succumbed  to  invading 
barbarians,  and  in  the  ashes  of  Rome  was  buried  all  that  was 
left  of  Greece.  Then  came  the  deluge.  Clouded  by  Chris- 


GALEN  AND  GREEK  MEDICINE  31 

tianity,  the  world  lay  for  centuries  in  the  abyss  of  irrationalism. 
Monks  crept  over  Europe,  and  in  their  trail  walked  mental 
stagnation.  Medicine  became  magic,  and  science  was  turned 
into  sorcery.  Supernaturalism  displaced  the  natural,  and  no 
fact  was  believed  unless  it  was  supported  by  a  miracle.  Some- 
times a  Jewish  or  Arabian  physician  would  stir  a  smoulder- 
ing Greek  ember  into  flame,  but  it  was  intellectual  night  in  the 
dominions  of  the  Nazarene. 

During  the  fifteen  hundred  years  that  the  world  was  too  in- 
dolent to  think  for  itself,  Galen  was  its  undisputed  authority. 
His  dogmatism  was  well  suited  for  the  general  sloth.  He 
was  regarded  as  infallible;  age  after  age  rolled  by,  and  in 
Europe,  Africa  and  Asia  he  remained  the  unquestioned  dic- 
tator. From  his  grave  he  ruled  continents  and  centuries.  He 
had  only  one  rival  —  the  Stagyrite.  'If  Galen  and  Aris- 
totle are  of  one  mind  on  a  subject,'  wrote  Rhazes,  '  then  of 
course  their  opinion  is  true.  When  they  differ,  however,  it 
is  extremely  difficult  to  decide  which  opinion  to  accept.'  So 
we  see  that  the  scholars  of  the  Dark  Ages  followed  Galen  and 
Aristotle  blindly,  and  never  caught  the  Greek  spirit  of  free 
inquiry. 

Light  did  not  shine  on  earth  again,  until  the  passion  for 
Greece  so  inflamed  the  hearts  of  men,  that  on  the  abandoned 
altars  of  Hellas,  awakening  Europe  found  burning  the  torch 
of  unfettered  speculation.  This  was  the  death-knell  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  and  when  the  clarion  calls  of  Doubt  went  ring- 
ing thruout  the  lands,  medievalism  was  transformed  into  mod- 
ernity; there  was  a  new  dispensation,  and  new  reckonings 
and  re-adjustments.  It  was  a  Revolution  that  mankind  has 
termed  the  Renaissance.  Truth  was  once  more  saluted,  and 
in  the  re-birth  of  the  intellect,  independent  thought  again  came 
to  human  brains.  What  happened  in  art  and  literature  and 
in  general  science,  is  common  knowledge  and  is  taught  to 
every  school-child,  but  medical  science  likewise  had  its  resur- 
rection. A  young  Flemish  anatomist,  who  plied  his  scalpel 
enthusiastically,  declared  that  Galen  had  made  mistakes.  The 


32  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

old  generation  was  aghast  at  the  blasphemy,  but  the  world 
was  marching  on,  and  from  his  inviolate  throne,  at  last  fell 
the  physician  of  Pergamus.  But  his  worth  was  measured  in 
the  impartial  balance  of  history,  and  the  verdict  was  that 
Galen  was  the  Prince  of  Physicians  —  but  not  infallible. 


ARET^EUS,  THE  FORGOTTEN  PHYSICIAN 


ARET^US,  THE  FORGOTTEN  PHYSICIAN 

Whatever  the  final  judgment  may  be,  one  thing  stands  out  as  certain 
—  after  Hippocrates,  no  single  Greek  author  has  equaled  Aretaeus,  and 
no  work  in  the  entire  literature  so  nearly  approaches  to  the  true  spirit 
of  Hippocratism,  both  in  description  of  disease  and  in  therapeutic  prin- 
ciples, as  the  work  of  the  Cappadocian. 

NEUBURGER:  History  of  Medicine. 

Aretaeus  is  one  of  the  most  original  and  eloquent  writers  of  antiquity. 
Starting  with  a  thoro  acquaintance  with  the  science  of  his  day,  taking 
Hippocrates  as  his  model,  and  repudiating  all  futile  speculations,  he  de- 
tails the  simple  results  of  his  own  experience,  in  a  systematic  treatise  of 
eight  books  on  the  history  and  treatment  of  acute  and  chronic  diseases, 
and  in  a  manner  so  striking  and  appropriate  as  rarely  to  have  been  ex- 
celled. 

WATSON:  Ancient  Medicine. 

'  WHO  is  Aretaeus  ? '  asked  a  distinguished  Professor  of 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  on  seeing  the  Cappadocian's  name 
on  a  program. 

This  question  could  well  echo  answerless  thruout  the  medi- 
cal world  until  it  reached  a  medical  historian.  For  Aretaeus  is 
a  forgotten  physician.  A  name  once  high  in  medical  annals 
has  fallen  low;  a  star  which  once  shone  next  to  Hippocrates, 
has  lost  its  lustre.  Who  is  Aretaeus? 

Hippocrates,  Herophilus,  Erasistratus,  Galen,  and  other 
physicians  of  antiquity  became  authorities  in  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
during  this  long  period,  Aretaeus  was  unknown,  and  his 
oblivion  still  survives. 

It  is  difficult  to  mention  a  subject  or  author  who  is  not 
indexed  at  the  Astor  Library,  but  Aretaeus  has  not  a  single 
card.  This  means  obscurity  indeed. 

Clio  seems  more  solicitous  of  the  destroyers,  than  of  the 
healers,  of  men.  We  know  when  the  Duke  of  Alva  was 
born,  and  are  not  in  doubt  of  the  time  of  Attila's  death.  But 
we  do  not  know  whether  the  discoverer  of  the  pulmonary 

35 


36  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

circulation  of  the  blood  was  born  in  1509  or  1511;  we  are 
uncertain  whether  the  father  of  modern  surgery  came  into 
the  world  in  1510  or  1517;  with  regard  to  Paulus  yEgineta, 
the  guesses  are  wider :  Le  Clerc  says  he  belongs  to  the  fourth 
century;  Vander  Linden  says  he  was  born  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury; Sprengel  says  he  lived  in  the  seventh  century;  Vossius 
says  nothing. 

As  far  as  Aretaeus  is  concerned,  there  is  a  similar  latitude 
of  opinion :  we  have  the  consolation  of  knowing  that  he  lived 
either  in  the  first,  second  or  third  century.  One  reason  for 
this  uncertainty  is  that  Aretaeus  quoted  no  author  except  Hip- 
pocrates; and  no  authors  quoted  him,  except  Aetius  and 
Paulus  ^Egineta,  and  as  both  of  these  writers  lived  consid- 
erably after  the  time  of  Aretaeus,  their  reference  to  him  fur- 
nishes no  clew  as  to  his  period.  He  is  also  mentioned  in  the 
Euporista,  formerly  attributed  to  Dioscorides.  If  it  were  in- 
deed the  work  of  Dioscorides,  it  would  practically  solve  the 
problem,  as  it  is  almost  universally  admitted  that  Dioscorides 
flourished  in  the  first  century.  But  it  is  now  agreed  that 
Euporista.  is  not  the  composition  of  Dioscorides,  but  the  work 
of  a  later  age.  According  to  some  authors,  the  circumstance 
that  neither  Galen  nor  Aretaeus  mention  each  other,  proves 
they  were  contemporaries. 

There  is  even  a  conflict  as  to  whether  he  belonged  to  the 
Pneumatic  School,  or  the  School  of  Eclectics,  or  any  school 
at  all.  In  truth,  had  he  founded  a  school,  let  it  be  as  irra- 
tional as  Perkinism,  his  fame  would  be  more  secure. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  he  lived  in  Alexandria,  as  he  makes 
numerous  references  to  the  habits  and  therapeutics  of  the 
Egyptians;  it  is  also  probable  that  he  resided  in  Italy,  as  he 
is  familiar  with  the  various  brands  of  Italian  wine :  Fundan 
and  Falernian,  Signine  and  Surrentine.  But  all  the  bio- 
graphic data  that  we  know  with  certainty,  can  be  expressed 
in  one  short  sentence:  Aretaeus,  a  Greek  physician  of  a 
Roman  province  in  Asia  Minor,  described  diseases  in  admir- 
able Ionic. 


ARETAEUS,  THE  FORGOTTEN  PHYSICIAN      37 

As  he  is  invariably  called  Aretaeus  the  Cappadocian,  we 
may  say  a  word  concerning  this  territory.  In  the  time  of 
Herodotus,  Cappadocia  occupied  a  considerable  portion  of 
Asia  Minor,  extending  from  Mount  Taurus  to  the  shores  of 
the  Euxine.  It  was  originally  an  independent  kingdom,  but  the 
Persians  divided  it  into  two  satrapies,  one  of  which  became 
known  as  Pontus,  while  the  inland  province  retained  its  name 
of  Cappadocia.  Now  began  sanguinary  struggles,  and  there 
were  endless  intrigues,  assassinations,  murders,  slaughters, 
cold-blooded  cruelties  without  beginning  or  end.  In  the  year 
17  A.  D.  Cappadocia  became  a  Roman  province,  grew  and 
prospered,  and  produced  St.  Gregory  the  ecclesiastic  who  i.s 
still  celebrated,  and  Aretaeus  the  physician  who  is  forgotten. 

Some  Greek  seems  to  have  had  a  prejudice  against  the 
province,  for  in  the  Anthology  we  find  this  couplet : 

A  viper  bit  a  Cappadocian's  hide; 

But  'twas  the  viper,  not  the  man,  that  died. 

But  tho  the  ever-falling  dust  of  time  has  almost  covered 
him  over,  it  cannot  make  the  name  of  Aretseus  as  if  it  had 
not  been,  for  Aretaeus  has  reared  unto  himself  a  monument 
more  enduring  than  brass — what  say  you,  Quintus  Horatius 
Flaccus?  His  seven-arched  structure  was  as  follows: 

Diseases 

Therapeutics 

Fevers 

Surgery 

Prophylaxis 

Gynecology 

Pharmacy 

It  is  true  the  dome  has  fallen  and  the  base  has  disappeared, 
but  enough  remains  to  demonstrate  that  Aretaeus  was  one  of 
the  greatest  of  ancient  physicians. 

It  is  a  delight  to  read  Aretaeus:  he  is  not  superstitious: 
his  mind  is  not  befuddled  with  outlandish  theories :  he  is  clear, 
rational  and  scientific;  he  does  not  indulge  in  any  of  those 


38  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

mystical  speculations  which  disfigure  the  pages  of  Paracelsus. 
Moreover  he  is  a  stylist.  No  doubt  the  strangest  passage 
Aretseus  ever  wrote  was  his  fantastic  account  of  the  uterus: 
*  In  the  middle  of  the  flanks  of  women  lies  the  womb,  a  female 
viscus,  closely  resembling  an  animal,  for  it  is  moved  of  itself 
hither  and  thither  in  the  flanks,  also  upwards  m  a  direct  line 
to  below  the  cartilage  of  the  thorax;  and  also  obliquely  to  the 
right  or  the  left  either  to  the  liver  or  spleen;  and  it  likewise 
is  subject  to  prolapses  downwards,  and  in  a  word,  is  alto- 
gether erratic.  It  delights  in  fragrant  smells,  and  advances 
towards  them;  and,  it  has  an  aversion  to  fetid  smells,  and 
flees  from  them:  and,  on  the  whole  the  womb  is  like  an 
animal  within  an  animal.' 

No  medical  author  surpasses  Aretaeus  in  his  vivid  por- 
trayal of  disease.  When  he  describes  consumption,  we  must 
not  read  the  symptoms  twice  to  make  a  diagnosis.  We  hear 
the  hoarse  chronic  cough,  the  clearing  of  the  throat,  the  blood 
and  pus  spat  up ;  we  notice  the  sweats,  the  pallor,  the  cadaver- 
ous aspect;  we  see  the  bony  ringers,  the  thickened  joints,  the 
curved  nails,  the  sharp  and  slender  nose,  and  the  prominent 
Adam's  apple;  we  see  the  narrow  chest,  the  lips  drawn  over 
the  teeth,  the  muscles  of  the  arm  gone,  the  ribs  sticking  thru 
the  skin,  the  shoulder-blades  projecting  like  wings  of  birds, 
and  the  eyes  hollow  and  brilliant. 

His  descriptions  of  tetanus,  epilepsy,  hysteria  and  asthma 
have  been  especially  praised,  but  his  picture  of  Satyriasis  is 
as  powerful  as  any :  '  Satyrs,  priests  of  Bacchus,  in  the  paint- 
ings and  statues,  have  the  phallus  erect,  as  the  symbol  of  the 
divine  performance.  It  is  also  a  form  of  disease,  in  which 
the  patient  has  erection  of  the  genital  organ,  the  appellation 
of  satyriasis  being  derived  from  its  resemblance  to  the  figure 
of  the  god.  It  is  an  unrestrainable  impulse  to  connection; 
but  neither  are  they  at  all  relieved  by  these  embraces,  nor  is 
the  tentigo  soothed  by  many  and  repeated  acts  of  sexual  in- 
tercourse. Spasms  of  all  the  nerves,  and  tension  of  all  the 
tendons,  groins,  and  perineum,  inflammation  and  pain  of  the 


ARETAEUS,  THE  FORGOTTEN  PHYSICIAN      39 

genital  parts,  redness  of  countenance,  and  a  dewy  moisture. 
Wrapped  up  in  silent  sorrow,  they  are  stupid,  as  if  grievously 
afflicted  with  their  calamity.  But  if  the  affection  overcome 
the  patient's  sense  of  shame,  he  will  lose  all  restraint  of  tongue 
as  regards  obscenity,  and  likewise  all  restraint  in  regard  to 
the  open  performance  of  the  act.  Raving  with  his  obscene 
imagination,  he  cannot  contain  himself ;  tormented  with  thirst, 
he  vomits  much  phlegm,  and  the  foam  sits  on  his  lips  as  in 
a  lascivious  goat,  and  he  has  a  smell  like  that  animal.' 
Strangely  enough,  the  author  of  the  above  had  no  knowledge 
of  nymphomania,  and  even  denied  its  existence. 

Among  other  disorders  which  he  treats  in  an  interesting 
manner  are:  migraine,  jaundice,  elephantiasis,  leukorrhea, 
hemoptysis,  pneumonia,  diarrhoea,  aortitis,  cephalalgia,  angina, 
dropsy,  gonorrhea,  dysentery,  apoplexy,  phrenitis,  cachexia. 

In  his  writings  we  find  for  the  first  time  an  account  of 
diphtheria.  The  description  is  well-done  except  as  to  the 
etiology.  There  were  giants  in  those  days,  but  no  compound 
microscopes,  and  Aretaeus  knew  not  the  Klebs-Loeffler  ba- 
cillus. 

He  is  the  first  European  who  wrote  a  systematic  account 
of  diabetes.  He  correctly  called  it  a  species  of  dropsy,  and 
paints  with  realistic  strokes  the  patient's  fiery  thirst,  his  im- 
perative desire  to  pass  water,  his  dry  mouth  and  parched  skin ; 
it  is  a  wonderful  malady,  he  says,  a  melting  down  of  the 
flesh  into  urine. 

According  to  Francis  Adams  —  not  the  unhappy  poet  who 
sang  the  songs  of  the  army  of  night,  and  slew  himself  in 
the  morning  of  life  —  but  the  careful  Greek  and  Latin  scholar 
of  the  same  name  who  was  very  familiar  with  the  writings 
of  the  fathers  of  medicine,  Aretseus  was  '  the  first  medical 
author  who  alludes  to  contagion  in  unequivocal  terms.' 

The  fourth  book  of  Paulus  ^gineta  begins  as  follows: 
'  Well,  in  my  opinion,  did  Aretaeus  the  Cappadocian  say,  that 
the  power  of  remedies  ought  to  be  greater  than  those  of  dis- 
eases; and  that  for  this  reason  elephantiasis  is  incurable,  be- 


40  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

cause  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  medicine  more  powerful  than 
it.  For  if  cancer,  which  is,  as  it  were,  an  elephantiasis  in  a 
particular  part,  is  ranked  among  the  incurable  diseases  by 
Hippocrates  himself,  how  much  more  is  not  elephantiasis  in- 
curable, which  is,  as  it  were,  a  cancer  of  the  whole  body?' 

Aretseus  seems  to  have  understood  the  direction  of  the 
blood-flow  in  the  veins;  if  so,  he  knew  more  than  the  physi- 
cians of  subsequent  centuries.  He  was  probably  the  first  to 
use  the  trephine  in  epilepsy.  He  likewise  had  knowledge  of 
tracheotomy.  But  his  greatest  claim  to  our  consideration  is 
his  practice  of  auscultation.  Dr  Cordell,  professor  of  the 
history  of  medicine  in  the  University  of  Maryland,  believes 
Aretaeus  is  the  only  one  of  the  ancient  writers  who  auscul- 
tated the  heart.  Rene  Laennac,  inventor  of  the  stethoscope, 
had  a  renowned  forerunner. 

He  distinguished  between  the  paralyses  of  motion  and  of 
sensation,  and  knew  that  injuries  to  the  brain  produce  paraly- 
sis on  the  opposite  side. 

He  divided  mental  disturbances  into  mania,  melancholia, 
and  settled  insanity, —  not  a  bad  classification. 

He  described  lead  colic,  and  other  disturbances  due  to  lead 
poisoning.  In  obstruction  of  the  urethra  by  vesical  calculus, 
he  employed  the  catheter.  He  removed  stone  by  incising 
below  the  scrotum,  and  cutting  inward  to  the  neck  of  the 
bladder  until  there  was  an  escape  of  urine  and  calculi.  He 
deserves  credit  for  his  endeavors  to  found  pathology  upon 
an  anatomical  basis. 

He  had  few  queer  notions.  It  is  true,  in  conformity  with 
the  custom  of  his  age,  he  was  too  fond  of  venesection,  but 
he  always  warned  against  excess  of  bloodletting,  claiming  it 
was  better  to  err  on  the  side  of  chariness.  He  believed  Castor 
was  a  remedy  in  all  diseases  of  the  nerves,  and  that  White 
Hellebore  would  vanquish  any  case  of  gout.  For  this  we 
must  not  blame  him  severely,  for  there  is  scarcely  a  physician" 
who  has  not  at  least  a  couple  old  standbys  by  which  he  swears. 

An  idea  of  the  nicety  of  his  observations  may  be  gained 


v^SCULAPIUS 


ARETAEUS,  THE  FORGOTTEN  PHYSICIAN      41 

from  a  random  passage;  in  discussing  methods  for  procuring 
sleep  he  writes :  '  Gentle  rubbing  of  the  feet  with  oil,  patting 
of  the  head,  and  particularly  stroking  of  the  temples  and  ears 
is  an  effectual  means;  for  by  the  stroking  of  their  ears  and 
temples  wild  beasts  are  overcome,  so  as  to  cease  from  their 
anger  and  fury.  But  whatever  is  familiar  to  anyone  is  to 
him  a  provocative  of  sleep.  Thus,  to  the  sailor,  repose  in 
a  boat,  and  being  carried  about  on  the  sea,  the  sound  of  the 
beach,  the  murmur  of  the  waves,  the  boom  of  the  winds,  and 
the  scent  of  the  sea  and  the  ship.  But  to  the  musician  the 
accustomed  notes  of  his  flute  in  stillness;  or  playing  on  the 
harp  or  lyre,  or  the  exercise  of  musical  children  with  song. 
To  a  teacher,  intercourse  with  the  tattle  of  children.  Dif- 
ferent persons  are  soothed  to  sleep  by  different  means.' 

Here  is  a  bit  of  psychology  which  every  medical  man  will 
endorse :  '  This  is  a  mighty  wonder,  that  in  hemorrhage  from 
the  lungs,  which  is  particularly  dangerous,  patients  do  not 
despair,  even  when  near  their  end.  The  insensibility  of  the 
lungs  to  pain  appears  to  me  to  be  the  cause  of  this;  for  pain 
even  when  slight  makes  one  fear  death.  In  most  cases  pain 
is  more  dreadful  than  pernicious,  whereas  the  absence  of  it, 
even  in  serious  illness,  is  unaccompanied  by  fear  of  death 
and  is  more  dangerous  than  dreadful.' 

There  is  another  sentence  which  we  wish  to  quote,  as  it 
will  arouse  a  response  from  every  physician  who  has  been 
called  at  the  last  moment  or  when  there  was  no  hope  for 
recovery :  'If  you  give  a  medicine  at  the  height  of  the  dyspnea, 
or  when  death  is  at  hand,  you  may  be  blamed  for  the  patient's 
death  by  the  vulgar.'  What  a  world  of  reserve  and  dignity 
is  in  this  simple  remark!  The  shoulders  of  Aretseus  the 
Cappadocian  were  broad  enough  to  wear  becomingly  the  man- 
tle of  Hippocrates. 

Twenty  centuries  ago  Aretaeus  knew  the  knack  of  driving 
a  point  home  by  a  good  story.  Wishing  to  illustrate  that 
the  gout  may  intermit,  he  relates  that  a  person  subject  to  gout 
won  the  race  in  the  Olympic  games  during  the  interval  of 


42  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

the  disease.  And  he  closes  his  chapter  on  melancholy  thus: 
'A  story  is  told  that  a  certain  person,  incurably  affected,  fell 
in  love  with  a  girl;  and  when  the  physicians  could  bring  him 
no  relief,  love  cured  him.  But  I  think  that  he  was  originally 
in  love,  and  that  he  was  dejected  and  spiritless  from  being 
unsuccessful  with  the  girl,  and  appeared  to  the  common  peo- 
ple to  be  melancholic.  He  then  did  not  know  that  it  was 
love ;  but  when  he  imparted  the  love  to  the  girl,  he  ceased  from 
his  dejection,  and  dispelled  his  passion  and  sorrow;  and  with 
joy  he  awoke  from  his  lowness  of  spirits,  and  he  became  re- 
stored to  understanding,  love  being  his  physician.' 

Aretaeus  shows  himself  a  true  physician  by  his  concern  and 
sympathy  for  the  patient,  in  small  matters  and  great :  '  Inunc- 
tions are  more  agreeable  and  efficacious  than  fomentations; 
for  an  ointment  does  not  run  down  and  stain  the  bed  clothes 
—  a  thing  very  disagreeable  to  the  patient  —  but  it  adheres, 
and  being  by  the  heat  of  the  body,  is  absorbed.  Thus 
its  effects  are  persistent,  whereas  liquid  preparations  run 
off.' 

Elsewhere  occurs  this  noble  phrase,  rarely  equalled  and 
never  bettered :  '  When  he  can  render  no  further  aid,  the  phy- 
sician alone  can  still  mourn  as  a  man  with  his  incurable  pa- 
tient: this  is  the  physician's  sad  lot.' 

Some  authors  call  their  work  '  a  confession ' ;  this  is  un- 
necessary, as  all  writing  is  autobiographical.  Write,  and  in 
spite  of  your  best  efforts  at  concealment,  your  feelings,  pas- 
sions, prejudices,  your  good  qualities,  failings,  sympathies, 
will  become  apparent;  where  you  least  expect  it,  you  will  give 
yourself  most  away;  your  true  self  will  lurk  between  the  lines, 
and  it  will  peep  from  the  pages. 

We  are  confident  that  from  the  excerpts  here  given,  the 
reader  has  already  formed  a  high  opinion  of  Aretseus.  If 
ever  a  man  cast  credit  on  the  art  of  healing,  it  was  the  lofty- 
souled  Cappadocian.  He  was  a  disciple  who  not  only  fol- 
lowed in  the  footsteps,  but  caught  the  spirit  of  the  immortal 
Father  of  Medicine.  Aretseus  should  not  be  a  forgotten 


physician,  for  no  one  better  than  he  could  repeat  with  de- 
corum, the  Hippocratic  Oath : 

'  With  purity  and  with  holiness  I  will  pass  my  life  and 
practise  my  art.  Into  whatever  houses  I  enter,  I  will  go 
into  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  sick,  and  will  abstain  from 
every  voluntary  act  of  mischief  and  corruption;  and,  further, 
from  the  seduction  of  females  and  males,  of  freemen  and 
slaves.  Whatever,  in  connection  with  my  professional  prac- 
tice, or  not  in  connection  with  it,  I  see  or  hear,  I  will  not 
divulge,  as  reckoning  that  all  things  should  be  kept  secret. 
While  I  continue  to  keep  this  oath  inviolate,  may  it  be  granted 
to  me  to  enjoy  life  and  the  practice  of  my  art,  respected  by 
all  men  at  all  times.  But  should  I  trespass  and  violate  this 
oath,  may  the  reverse  be  my  lot ! ' 


(1493-1541) 
PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE 

A  striking  similarity  with  the  doctrines  of  Darwin  is  found  in  the  view 
of  Paracelsus,  that  the  origin  of  everything  is  simply  the  transformation 
of  germs  always  existing  (and  therefore  is  a  metamorphosis),  as  well  as 
in  the  fact  that  he  maintained  that  every  object  and  being  originated  at 
the  expense  of,  and  thru  the  destruction  of,  another  —  a  doctrine  in 
which  we  see  already  developed  the  war  of  individual  against  individual, 
and  the  struggle  for  existence,  so  much  talked  about  now-a-days. 

BAAS  :  History  of  Medicine. 

All  diseases,  according  to  the  prevalent  idea,  came  from  excess  in 
either  bile,  phlegm',  or  blood.  Paracelsus  maintained  that  each  disease 
had  its  own  definite  existence,  with  definite  cause  and  sequences,  and 
must  be  antagonized  by  specific  remedies.  This  was  the  inauguration 
of  the  modern  method  of  combating  disease.  No  progress  was  possible 
until  this  view  of  its  nature  was  adopted. 

VENABLE:  History  of  Chemistry. 

THE  road  that  leads  to  the  inaccessible  rock  called  Browning 
requires  sturdy  legs  for  climbing.  Yet  the  ascent  is  not  bar- 
ren :  on  the  rugged  summit,  lilies  cannot  grow,  but  the  edel- 
weiss thrives.  This  most  enigmatical  of  poets  has  written 
a  poem  on  the  most  enigmatical  of  scientists.  The  production 
is  long,  sometimes  tedious  and  often  incomprehensible,  but 
it  contains  this  immortal  passage: 

Are  there  not,  dear  Michal, 
Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver: 
One  —  when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge, 
One  —  when,  a  prince,  he  rises,  with  his  pearl? 
Festus,  I  plunge ! 

Here  we  have  an  epitome  of  the  life  of  Paracelsus.  He 
did  not  stand  on  the  shore  of  conventionality  and  admire  the 
treasures  that  antiquity  had  gathered.  He  was  a  dauntless 
diver,  and  stripping  himself  naked,  he  leapt  into  unknown 
seas  of  thought.  The  pearls  with  which  he  rose  are  for  us 
to  exhibit  in  the  pages  that  follow. 

47 


4.8  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Everything  connected  with  this  man  is  remarkable,  even 
his  full  name:  Philippus  Aureolus  Theophrastus  Paracelsus 
Bombastus  von  Hohenheim.  It  has  been  calculated  that  he 
received  only  two-fifths  of  this  at  baptism.  For  instance,  he 
coined  the  name  Paracelsus  to  indicate  his  superiority  to 
Celsus. 

He  was  born  at  an  interesting  time :  when  Europe  stretched 
her  limbs  after  a  sleep  of  a  thousand  years  in  a  bed  of  dark- 
ness; he  lived  during  the  period  that  Columbus  discovered 
America,  and  Luther  cleft  Catholicism  in  twain,  and  Coper- 
nicus remodeled  astronomy. 

His  birthplace  was  near  the  little  Swiss  town  of  Maria- 
Einsiedeln, —  where  the  Black  Virgin  is  still  worshiped. 
Fame  selects  odd  places  to  lay  her  children.  Perhaps  be- 
cause she  is  whimsical  and  knows  they  will  not  be  lost. 
Boerhaave  was  born  in  the  village  of  Voorhout;  he  sleeps 
in  the  medical  Valhalla. 

The  mother  of  Paracelsus  was  the  superintendent  of  a 
hospital.  His  father  —  the  illegitimate  son  of  a  grandmaster 
of  the  Teutonic  order  —  was  a  physician  of  repute.  His 
father  was  his  first  teacher,  and  the  turbulent  son  ever  ven- 
erated his  memory.  When  a  parent  earnestly  undertakes  to 
educate  his  child,  the  result  is  brilliant, —  provided  the  child 
is  brilliant.  The  fathers  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen  had  rea- 
son to  think  so.  So  did  the  sire  of  Paracelsus. 

It  is  believed  that  when  Paracelsus  was  three  or  four  years 
old  he  was  castrated  by  a  hog.  According  to  others  it  was 
a  drunken  soldier,  while  still  others  say  it  was  his  own  father 
who  performed  the  act.  It  is  agreed  that  Paracelsus  had  no 
connections  with  women;  yet  it  was  he  who  introduced  mer- 
curials for  syphilis.  Some  claim  that  because  of  his  emas- 
culation, Paracelsus  never  had  a  beard,  but  there  are  pas- 
sages on  record  in  which  Paracelsus  boasts  that  there  is  more 
wisdom  in  his  beard  than  in  the  heads  of  all  the  ancient  sages. 
Paracelsus  appears  to  have  been  rachitic  in  his  youth,  and 
like  many  rickety  children  was  precocious. 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE       4® 

He  never  graduated  from  a  college.  He  read  few  books 
and  kept  no  library.  But  the  amount  and  extent  of  his 
travels  were  astonishing.  He  is  certainly  the  Marco  Polo  of 
medicine,  tho  several  of  the  ancient  physicians  —  Hippocrates, 
Dioscorides,  Galen, —  likewise  heard  the  call  of  the  wander- 
lust. He  roamed  over  half  the  world:  he  saw  old  Tartary, 
Egypt  was  traversed  by  him,  he  stood  in  India  and  beyond. 
And  everywhere  he  sought  to  acquire  knowledge  from  all 
peoples:  peasants,  thieves,  fortune-tellers,  musicians,  mid- 
wives,  barbers,  gypsies,  bath-keepers,  loafers,  old  women, — 
and  even  from  physicians. 

His  restless  eyes  were  ever  open  for  truth,  his  unsatisfied 
spirit  sought  relief  in  discoveries.  He  scorned  the  written 
works  of  the  past.  He  believed  in  independent  meditation 
and  original  observation, —  which  is  all  very  well  for  an  in- 
genious and  daring  thinker  like  Paracelsus,  but  would  never 
do  for  all  our  internes  and  externes.  One  needs  keen  eye- 
sight to  read  the  book  of  nature.  '  My  accusers/  he  remon- 
strates in  his  piquant  and  poetic  style,  '  complain  that  I  have 
not  entered  the  temple  of  knowledge  thru  the  legitimate  door. 
But  which  one  is  the  truly  legitimate  door?  Galenus  and 
Avicenna  or  Nature?  I  have  entered  thru  the  door  of  Na- 
ture: her  light,  and  not  the  lamp  of  an  apothecary's  shop  has 
illuminated  my  way.' 

Paracelsus  was  an  iconoclast:  he  had  no  use  for  the  medi- 
cine of  his  day.  His  aim  was  to  reform  it  from  beginning 
to  end.  He  was  not  the  highest  type  of  the  reformer.  He 
had  not  the  calm  dignity  and  lofty  reserve  of  Giordano  Bruno, 
he  lacked  the  sublimity  of  Spinoza,  and  the  modesty  of  Dar- 
win was  not  his.  He  had  a  streak  of  clownishness  in  him 
and  possessed  the  elements  of  a  buffoon.  He  was  often 
as  gross  as  the  aristocrats  of  his  time,  and  could  have  en- 
gaged in  drinking-bouts  with  Martin  Luther.  His  self-ad- 
vertising habits  were  distasteful.  Paracelsus  blew  noisy 
blasts  on  his  own  horn.  He  covered  his  breast  with  medals, 
and  his  brow  was  decked  with  laurels  of  his  own  plucking. 


50 

He  sang  odes  in  his  own  honor,  and  was  never  weary  of 
celebrating  his  great  self.  There  was  a  complacent  cock- 
sureness  about  him  that  would  have  roused  the  ire  of  a  turtle- 
dove. '  Tell  me,  Galenic  doctor/  he  jauntily  asks,  '  on  what 
foundation  you  stand?  Have  you  ever  cured  Podagra,  have 
you  ever  dared  to  attack  leprosy,  or  healed  dropsy?  Truly 
I  think  you  will  be  silent  and  allow  that  Paracelsus  is  your 
master.  If  you  really  wish  to  learn,  listen  to  what  I  say, 
attend  to  what  I  write.'  Such  vanity  overtops  the  loftiest 
peaks  of  his  native  Alps.  Compared  to  Paracelsus,  the  mag- 
pie is  shy  and  the  peacock  modest.  Now  we  have  said  the 
worst  about  him ;  but  does  it  explain  how  he  discovered  Zinc  ? 

It  is  fortunate  for  medicine  that  Paracelsus  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  wiping  out  Galen,  who  was  the  more  scientific  and 
less  fantastic  of  the  two.  Paracelsus  lived  in  superstitious 
times,  and  was  a  son  of  his  age.  He  believed  there  were 
spirits  in  the  air,  gnomes  in  the  earth,  nymphs  in  the  water, 
and  salamanders  in  the  fire.  He  reveled  in  the  mysteries  of 
the  kabala ;  he  adored  astrology ;  he  was  an  adept  in  alchemy ; 
he  invented  the  alkahest.  From  his  wanderings  in  the  Ori- 
ent he  brought  home  outlandish  mixtures  of  spiritism,  the- 
osophy,  occultism,  and  other  crazy  creeds  which  find  adherents 
even  in  the  twentieth  century. 

But  it  is  extremely  fortunate  for  medicine  that  Paracelsus 
fought  Galen,  for  the  physician  of  Pergamus  cast  an  hypnotic 
spell  over  the  profession.  For  several  centuries  physicians 
argued  in  this  manner :  '  Galen  said  so ;  ergo,  it  must  be  so. 
Not  all  your  experiments  or  observations  are  of  any  value.' 
New  evidence  was  not  permitted  to  displace  Galen's  old  er- 
rors. In  this  poisonous  atmosphere  Science  could  not  breathe. 
When  we  recall  such  criminal  reverence  for  authority,  we 
can  forgive  the  dictum  of  the  judicious  Boerhaave:  'Galen 
has  done  more  harm  than  good.' 

Paracelsus  did  not  tread  the  accepted  path  with  closed 
eyes.  His  radicalism  was  needed,  his  influence  was  healthy. 
He  who  breaks  up  superstitious  veneration  for  the  past,  be- 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE       51 

comes  a  benefactor  of  the  future.  His  fault  lay  in  his  at- 
tempt to  replace  the  authority  of  Galen  by  the  authority  of 
Paracelsus,  and  for  this  he  is  blameworthy.  But  he  was  the 
yeast  that  leavened  the  medical  dough.  The  lance  of  his 
free  wit  punctured  many  an  orthodox  error.  He  smote  the 
pedestals  of  falsehood,  and  the  unclean  images  fell.  Festus, 
I  plunge! 

Paracelsus'  conception  of  medicine  was  due  to  a  sort  of 
neo-platonic  pantheism  —  whatever  that  may  be  —  and  was 
based  on  the  relationship  that  man  the  microcosm  bears  to 
nature  the  macrocosm.  '  There  is  nothing  in  heaven  and 
earth,'  he  says,  '  which  is  not  in  man,  and  God  who  is  in 
heaven  is  also  in  man.'  He  believed  that  diseases  were 
caused  by  the  action  of  certain  constituents  in  the  universe 
acting  on  the  corresponding  elements  in  man.  Therefore  in 
order  to  be  able  to  treat  man,  it  was  necessary  to  understand 
all  nature.  No  theory  could  well  be  more  irrational  than 
this,  and  it  naturally  led  Paracelsus  to  serious  errors.  For 
if  disease  is  due  to  a  conflict  between  the  macrocosmus  and 
the  microcosmus,  it  follows  that  Astrology  is  more  important 
for  a  physician  than  Anatomy,  and  it  seems  that  Paracelsus 
actually  thought  so! 

Paracelsus  claimed  that  medicine  rests  on  four  pillars: 
Philosophy,  Astronomy,  Alchemy,  Virtue.  He  defined  these 
terms  differently  than  we  do  now,  but  on  the  whole  we  may 
say  that  these  pillars,  like  the  columns  of  the  Roman  Forum, 
have  fallen:  a  test-tube  is  stronger  than  them  all. 

Paracelsus  agreed  with  Basil  Valentine  that  man  and  the 
entire  universe  were  composed  of  three  primary  mystic  ele- 
ments :  mercury,  sulphur,  salt.  Whatever  sublimes  is  mer- 
cury; whatever  burns  is  sulphur;  whatever  remains  is  salt. 

He  anticipated  the  mesmerism  of  Mesmer,  and  the  similia 
similibus  curantur  of  Hahnemann  —  for  which  anticipations 
we  need  not  be  especially  thankful  to  him. 

Paracelsus  believed  that  medicines,  like  women,  were  known 
by  their  shapes.  It  was  his  theory  that  everything  in  nature 


52 

was  made  for  the  human  race,  and  that  God  put  his  signa- 
ture on  all  drugs.  The  orchis-root  is  testiculate  and  there- 
fore should  be  used  for  diseases  of  the  testicle;  the  flower 
of  the  euphrasia  has  a  black  spot  which  indicates  that  it  should 
be  used  for  the  pupil  of  the  eye;  if  a  plant  has  more  than 
one  color,  it  means  it  possesses  more  than  one  therapeutic 
property;  the  juice  of  celendine  is  yellow,  and  consequently 
good  for  jaundice;  the  spines  of  a  thistle  will  heal  pains  in 
the  side.  Why  should  frogs  be  used  for  plagues?  That's 
easy ;  because  frogs  are  disgusting  and  plagues  are  disgusting. 

Of  course  Paracelsus  had  many  recipes  for  the  prolonga- 
tion of  life.  And  not  only  did  he  think  we  could  live  indefi- 
nitely, but  he  believed  a  human  embryo  could  be  created  by 
chemical  means.  This  is  now  considered  impossible,  but  be- 
fore 1828  it  was  likewise  deemed  impossible  to  manufacture 
an  organic  compound  in  a  laboratory.  Paracelsus'  dream 
may  yet  be  realized;  surely  Jacques  Loeb  has  made  a  mag- 
nificent beginning.  But  this  is  perhaps  a  problem  for  the 
twenty-fifth  century. 

Little  will  here  be  said  concerning  Paracelsus'  notions  on 
Magic.  We  have  scant  inclination  to  elucidate  his  aniadum 
and  aquastor,  or  explain  his  evestrum  and  erodinium.  We 
feel  no  interest  in  his  hidden  iliasters,  ultimate  essences, 
sidereal  bodies,  astral  corpses,  haunted  houses  and  poisoned 
moons.  Expositions  of  such  vagaries  may  well  be  left  to 
unsound  mediums  like  Helen  Blavatsky  and  insane  mystics 
like  Franz  Hartmann. 

Out  of  these  voluminous  writings  on  Mystery  we  will  con- 
tent ourselves  with  two  short  extracts:  the  first,  disgusting; 
the  second,  delightful.  In  De  Pestilitate  he  says,  '  But  if 
a  witch  desires  to  poison  a  man  with  her  eyes,  she  will  go  to 
a  place  where  she  expects  to  meet  him.  When  he  approaches 
she  will  look  into  the  poisoned  mirror,  and  then,  after  hiding 
the  mirror,  look  into  his  eyes,  and  the  influence  of  the  poison 
passes  from  the  mirror  into  her  eyes  and  from  her  eyes  into 
the  eyes  of  that  person;  but  a  witch  may  cure  her  own  eyes 


by  making  a  fire  and  staring  into  it,  and  then  taking  the 
menstrual  cloth,  and  after  tying  it  around  a  stone,  throwing 
it  into  the  fire.  After  the  cloth  is  burnt,  she  extinguishes  the 
fire  with  her  urine,  and  her  eyes  will  be  cured ;  but  her  enemy 
may  become  blind.' 

From  his  De  Morbis  Amentium  we  quote  a  pleasanter  pas- 
sage :  '  Some  will  fall  deeply  in  love  with  the  person  who 
administered  to  them  these  philtres  prepared  by  sorcerers; 
and  it  has  happened  that  in  this  way  masters  and  mistresses 
have  fallen  deeply  in  love  with  servants  who  administered 
them  such  things;  and  thus  they  became  themselves  the  serv- 
ants of  their  own  servants.  Even  horses,  dogs  and  other 
animals  have  thus  been  brought  under  the  influence  of  such 
spells.  If  women  administer  such  things  to  men  the  latter 
may  fall  so  deeply  in  love  with  the  former  as  to  be  unable 
to  think  of  anything  else  but  them;  and  if  men  administer 
such  things  to  women,  the  latter  will  continually  think  of 
them.' 

So  far  the  reader  has  had  no  glimpse  of  the  promised  Para- 
celsian  pearls.  Let  us  begin  by  stating  that  altho  Paracelsus 
himself  was  a  star  in  the  alchemical  sky,  he  asserted  '  the  ob- 
ject of  true  alchemy  is  not  to  make  gold  but  to  prepare  medi- 
cines.' It  was  he  who  made  chemistry  the  handmaid  of 
medicine,  and  inaugurated  the  era  of  iatro-chemistry.  Festus, 
I  plunge! 

His  followers  —  Spagyrists  they  were  called  —  ceased  to 
look  for  the  Philosopher's  Stone  that  cures  the  diseases  of 
metals,  and  commenced  to  search  for  various  remedies  to 
heal  the  ills  of  mankind.  Paracelsus  himself  enriched  the 
Materia  Medica. 

Tin  was  known  from  the  remotest  antiquity,  Moses  and 
Homer  mention  it,  the  Phoenicians  traded  in  it  a  thousand 
years  before  Christ,  but  it  remained  for  Paracelsus  to  suggest 
the  use  of  stanni  pulvis  as  an  anthelmintic. 

Paracelsus  brought  Antimony  into  special  vogue,  but  credit 
for  first  mention  of  its  medicinal  properties  belongs  to  that 


54  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

strange  monk,  Basil  Valentine.  We  do  not  know  of  anyone 
who  employed  the  lead  salts  for  internal  treatment,  prior 
to  Paracelsus.  He  had  much  to  do  with  the  introduction  of 
copper  sulphate  into  therapeutics.  He  was  largely  instru- 
mental in  adding  iron  salts  and  milk  of  sulphur  to  the  med- 
ical armamentarium. 

The  discovery  of  zinc  must  be  accredited  to  Paracelsus; 
at  any  rate  he  is  the  first  to  mention  zinc  as  a  separate  metal, 
distinct  from  its  alloy.  The  passage  in  which  he  refers  to 
it  is  worth  quoting  for  historical  reasons : 

'  There  is  another  metal,  zinc,  which  is  in  general  un- 
known. It  is  a  distinct  metal  of  a  different  origin,  tho  adul- 
terated with  many  other  metals.  It  can  be  melted,  for  it 
consists  of  three  principles,  but  it  is  not  malleable.  In  its 
color  it  is  unlike  all  others,  and  does  not  grow  in  the  same 
manner ;  but  with  its  ultima  materia  I  am  as  yet  unacquainted, 
for  it  is  almost  as  strange  in  its  properties  as  argentum  vivum. 
It  admits  of  no  mixture,  will  not  bear  the  fabricationes  of 
other  metals,  but  keeps  itself  entirely  to  itself.' 

He  was  the  first  to  use  zinc  oxide  and  zinc  sulphate  medi- 
cinally; he  showed  how  to  purify  the  latter.  As  far  as  we 
know,  Paracelsus  was  the  first  who  was  acquainted  with  ethe- 
real oil. 

Paracelsus'  favorite  remedy  was  what  he  called  laudanum, 

—  which  to-day  means  tincture  of  opium.     The  interesting 
and  even  important  question  arises  if  his  laudanum  was  sim- 
ilar to  laudanum  liquidum  Sydenhami.     Nearly  all  authors 
answer  in  the  affirmative,  but  Dr  Monsarrat  denies  it  with 
angry  emphasis,  and  hotly  insists  that  Paracelsus'  laudanum 
never  even  saw  opium.     It   should  be  remarked,   however, 
that  Dr  Monsarrat  sees  little  good  in  Paracelsus.     There  is 
no  doubt  that  Paracelsus,  against  the  opposition  of  the  Galen- 
ists,  did  much  to  advance  the  therapeutic  reputation  of  opium 

—  tho  we  are  here  met  by  the  puzzle  that  Galen  himself  had 
recommended  it. 

It  follows  that  Paracelsus'  idea  that  chemistry  should  be 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE       55 

an  adjunct  of  medicine,  his  advocacy  of  numerous  mineral 
remedies,  the  impetus  he  gave  to  the  preparation  of  new  drugs, 
considerably  enlarged  the  scope  of  pharmacy,  which  up  to 
that  time  concerned  itself  chiefly  with  roots  and  herbs,  syrups 
and  the  like. 

Paracelsus  did  praiseworthy  work  in  combating  the  poly- 
pharmacy  of  his  time,  which  put  hundreds  of  ingredients  in 
a  single  prescription.  '  Bah ! '  he  exclaims,  '  this  miserable 
compounding  business!  Yet  the  woman  requires  only  one 
man  to  father  her  child;  many  seeds  only  corrupt  it.  Mix 
many  kinds  of  seeds  and  bray  them  like  an  apothecary  and 
bury  them  in  the  earth;  no  fruit  will  come  from  them.' 

By  treating  iron  filings  with  oil  of  vitriol  Paracelsus  no- 
ticed a  gas  whose  evolution  he  referred  to  as  '  the  rising  of 
a  wind.'  This  is  the  first  mention  of  hydrogen;  but  of 
course  Paracelsus  did  not  know  its  elementary  nature,  and 
confused  it  with  air.  Not  he,  but  Henry  Cavendish  must 
be  considered  the  discoverer  of  our  lightest  element. 

Mercury  was  employed  externally  by  the  Arabians,  as  a 
remedy  for  vermin  and  cutaneous  diseases;  but  to  Paracelsus 
we  are  indebted  for  its  internal  administration  in  syphilis. 
This  alone  should  be  sufficient  for  immortality.  From  that 
time  on,  mercury  remained  the  specific  for  this  loathsome 
affliction. 

A  few  days  ago,  while  recording  my  impressions  of  the 
French  capital,  I  wrote  these  words :  '  Many  who  come  to 
the  gay  city  to  worship  Venus,  remain  there  to  pay  tribute 
to  Mercury.  Just  as  in  New  York  there  is  a  sorrowful  Bread- 
Line  which  waits  for  its  daily  loaf  at  Fleischmann's  Bakery, 
so  in  Paris  there  is  a  pathetic  Lues  Line  which  waits  for  its 
mercurial  injection  at  the  Hospital  Cochin.  Who  shall  say 
which  is  worse  —  the  horrors  of  starvation,  or  the  ravages 
of  that  pale  spiral  bacillus?  But  this  much  is  certain:  the 
best  medicine  for  the  malady  of  hunger  is  bread,  and  the 
best  remedy  for  the  disease  of  syphilis  is  mercury.' 

My  paragraph  is  no  longer  true ;  the  most  recent  text-books 


56 

are  now  antiquated;  mercury  has  been  superseded;  the  sci- 
ence of  medicine  does  not  sleep!  The  therapeutic  world  is 
tingling  at  the  news  of  the  most  important  discovery  since 
Serturner  isolated  morphine,  and  Pelletier  and  Caventou  ex- 
tracted quinine  from  cinchona.  Paul  Ehrlich  announces  a 
remedy  which  may  cure  syphilis  in  a  single  injection:  no 
more  months  and  years  of  mercury.  It  is  an  arsenical  prep- 
aration, somewhat  akin  to  atoxyl,  chemically  paradioxy- 
diamidoarsenobenzol,  popularly  known  by  its  experiment 
number,  '  606.'  It  contains  no  mercury,  and  Paracelsus'  spe- 
cific may  be  a  specific  of  the  past. 

But  the  history  of  syphilis  cannot  be  written  with  the  name 
of  Paracelsus  left  out.  Several  of  his  original  observations 
concerning  this  disease  are  correct.  He  divided  it  into  stages, 
observed  the  heredity  of  syphilis,  and  was  aware  of  its  in- 
fluence on  the  course  of  other  diseases.  He  knew  that  gonor- 
rhea was  due  to  coitus,  but  he  m<.  Je  the  mistake  of  believing 
it  to  be  an  initial  stage  of  syphilis,  and  therefore  labeled  it 
French  gonorrhea. 

This  error,  tho  a  serious  one,  is  not  surprising,  when  we 
recall  how  strenuously  the  unity  of  the  gonorrheal  and 
syphilitic  virus  was  upheld  by  the  acute  John  Hunter,  who 
had  moreover  the  advantage  of  living  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Hunter,  for  experimental  purposes,  inoculated  him- 
self on  the  prepuce  and  glans,  with  the  pus  of  a  virulent 
gonorrhea;  unhappily,  the  subject  from  whom  he  took  the 
poison  had  also  a  chancre  in  his  urethra;  the  result  was  that 
Hunter  developed  not  only  gonorrhea  but  syphilis.  There- 
upon the  illustrious  and  heroic  experimentalist  proclaimed 
that  a  gonorrheal  secretion  produces  syphilis,  and  that  there 
is  but  a  single  venereal  virus.  Folks  were  not  in  the  habit 
of  holding  interrogation  marks  up  to  John  Hunter;  what  he 
said,  the  profession  believed;  his  disastrous  mistake  was  per- 
sisted in  until  the  syphilological  work  of  Phillipe  Ricord 
straightened  out  matters.  Once  again  do  we  see  the  fatal 
results  of  following  authority  blindly. 


PARACELSUS 


Hunter  had  also  written,  '  I  have  not  seen  that  the  brain, 
heart,  stomach,  liver,  kidneys,  and  other  viscera  have  been 
attacked  by  syphilis,  altho  such  cases  have  been  described  by 
authors.'  On  account  of  this  flippant  and  careless  statement, 
nothing  further  was  said  of  visceral  syphilis  for  over  half 
a  century!  Comment  is  superfluous;  as  the  lawyers  say,  res 
ipsa  loquitur. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  there  was  a  chasm  of  animosity 
between  Medicine  and  Surgery,  but  Paracelsus  was  a  mem- 
ber of  both  branches.  He  was  the  first  to  point  out  the  con- 
nection between  goitre  of  the  parents  and  cretinism  of  the 
offspring;  his  description  of  hospital  gangrene  is  admirable; 
his  ideas  on  the  treatment  of  wounds  were  more  rational  in 
several  respects  than  those  of  his  contemporaries;  he  declared 
that  suppuration  was  bad  healing  and  insisted  on  the  clean- 
liness of  wounds;  across  the  centuries  let  Lister  greet  his 
precursor. 

As  a  rule,  the  German  historians  regard  Paracelsus  more 
favorably  than  do  the  medical  authors  of  other  nations.  No 
doubt  they  are  grateful  to  him  because  he  was  the  first  sci- 
entist to  write  in  the  German  tongue, —  and  he  wrote  like 
a  literary  master.  He  knew  the  value  of  antithesis,  and  when 
his  ink-horn  felt  the  quill,  it  became  a  crucible  that  coined 
golden  epigrams. 

He  has  another  connection  with  literature:  the  Englishman 
of  letters  seems  fond  of  him.  Paracelsus  has  the  exceptional 
honor  of  being  mentioned  by  Shakespeare,  who  in  his  com- 
edy, All's  Well  That  Ends  Well,  puts  this  phrase  in  the  mouth 
of  La  feu :  '  Both  of  Galen  and  Paracelsus,  of  all  the  learned 
and  authentic  fellows.'  Bacon  praises  his  endeavor  to  get 
at  the  truth  thru  the  light  of  experience.  Another  Eliza- 
bethan —  O  rare  Ben  Jonson !  —  refers  to  Paracelsus  in  his 
drama  Volpone;  Samuel  Butler,  in  his  celebrated  Hudibras, 
speaks  of  the  laudanum  which  Paracelsus  kept  in  the  pommel 
of  his  long  sword;  Kingsley  praises  him  wholeheartedly;  but 
his  staunchest  supporter  is  Robert  Browning,  who  in  a  note 


58  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

to  his  poem  goes  so  far  as  to  state  that  Paracelsus  is  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  the  father  of 
modern  chemistry. 

There  is  probably  no  character  in  general  history,  and  cer- 
tainly not  one  in  medical  history,  about  whom  such  diverse 
estimates  have  been  expressed  as  of  Paracelsus.  To  Zim- 
mermann  he  is  an  ass;  to  Hans  Locher  he  is  the  greatest  of 
Swiss  physicians;  to  Freind  he  is  a  loud-mouthed  humbug; 
to  Jules  Andrieu  he  is  the  best  of  men;  to  Dr  Dalton  he  is 
an  ignorant  vagabond;  to  Creighton  he  is  a  sagacious  re- 
former; to  Thorpe  he  is  a  worthless  charlatan;  to  Baas  he  is 
a  high-minded  professional  man;  to  Monsarrat  he  is  a  para- 
site hanging  on  the  skirts  of  science;  to  Venable  he  is  the 
torch  that  lit  up  the  darkness  of  his  age.  Perhaps  I  am  ex- 
pected to  be  wise  and  say  that  the  truth  lies  in  the  middle, 
but  may  the  memory  of  Theophile  Gautier's  wit  save  me  from 
such  hackneyed  business. 

A  sapient  Frenchman  said,  '  Calumniate !  Calumniate !  Ca- 
lumniate!—  some  of  it  will  stick.'  Paracelsus  had  numerous 
enemies,  and  some  of  it  has  stuck.  Slander  of  Paracelsus 
yet  comes  from  those  who  find  his  independence  annoying, 
and  his  exuberant  originality  irritating.  But  to  call  Para- 
celsus a  charlatan  is  to  cast  undeserved  glory  on  the  filthy 
tribe  of  Munyon,  Bernarr  Macfadden,  and  their  swindling 
confreres.  Paracelsus  was  irregular,  because  he  was  ahead 
of  the  medical  knowledge  of  his  day;  the  average  quack  is 
irregular  because  he  has  not  the  capacity  to  pass  the  college 
examinations.  A  quack  has  one  object  —  to  get  rich  quick. 
Had  Paracelsus  been  willing  to  conform  to  authority  he  would 
have  attained  to  great  wealth,  but  he  always  remained  poor. 
'  My  poverty,'  he  says,  '  was  thrown  in  my  face  by  a  Burgo- 
master who  had  perhaps  only  seen  doctors  attired  in  silken 
robes,  never  basking  in  tattered  rags  in  the  sunshine.  So  it 
was  decreed  I  was  not  a  physician.' 

Paracelsus  tells  us  why  he  became  a  reformer :  '  Since  I 
saw  that  the  doctrine  accomplished  nothing  but  the  making 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE       59 

of  corpses,  deaths,  murder,  deformity,  cripples,  and  decay, 
and  had  no  foundation,  I  was  compelled  to  pursue  the  truth 
in  another  way,  to  seek  another  basis,  which  I  have  attained 
after  hard  labor.'  He  had  a  noble  conception  of  the  duty 
of  a  physician,  and  was  so  anxious  to  cure  that  he  exclaimed, 
'  If  God  will  not  help  me,  so  help  me  the  Devil! '  In  the 
presence  of  the  sick,  Paracelsus  was  a  changed  man:  his 
arrogance  and  bombast  turned  to  humanity  and  charity.  His 
heart  was  naturally  noble,  and  at  such  times  especially  so. 
He  felt  himself  a  father  to  the  patient;  this  proves  he  was 
not  a  quack,  but  a  genuine  physician.  The  maimed,  the 
diseased,  the  suffering,  came  to  him. 

A  man  named  Bartholomew  who  had  for  two  years  a  pain 
in  his  side,  a  woman  who  had  a  great  swelling  on  her  thigh, 
a  soldier  who  was  shot  in  the  breast  with  a  forked  arrow, 
a  young  man  who  had  a  crusty  ulcer  on  his  chin,  one  whose 
stomach  was  swollen  and  standing  out,  a  lad  whose  finger 
was  eaten  to  the  bone  with  disease,  a  goldsmith  whose  skull 
had  been  injured,  one  Jonas  who  fell  in  love  with  one  Sabina 
and  then  fell  beside  himself,  the  daughter  of  one  Oliver  who 
was  pale  and  ate  small  stones  and  chalk,  a  boy  of  eighteen 
who  had  a  black  bladder  appear  where  a  tooth  was  drawn, 
a  young  gentlewoman  named  Ascania  who  had  pain  all  over 
her  body,  one  who  had  a  flux  of  blood  from  a  severed  artery, 
a  knight  who  suffered  a  stroke  of  apoplexy,  a  man  of  the 
country  who  was  stung  by  an  adder,  one  who  was  wounded 
in  the  tunicle  of  the  heart,  a  young  man  who  was  vexed  with 
a  continual  and  violent  cough,  a  certain  woman  who  was 
troubled  with  a  disease  in  her  secret  parts,  one  named  Ver- 
mundus  who  was  so  weak  in  his  head  that  he  staggered  as 
if  drunk,  a  fair  young  man  who  was  infected  with  the  pox 
thru  the  filthy  sin  of  the  Sodomites,  one  named  Gallenus  who 
had  lost  his  speech,  one  who  was  troubled  with  a  great  burn- 
ing of  the  urine,  one  who  had  a  cataract  of  the  eyes,  a  woman 
whose  courses  were  so  long  that  she  was  ready  to  give  up 
the  ghost,  a  sucking  child  whose  palate  was  full  of  pustules, 


60  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

one  Gotius  who  had  a  bone  out  of  joint  for  several  days,  a 
lawyer  who  was  long  sick  of  the  colic,  a  man  of  threescore 
years  who  was  full  of  melancholy  humors,  a  woman  who 
three  months  after  conception  feared  abortion,  a  certain  man 
who  had  carnal  company  with  his  wife  but  could  void  no 
sperm,  a  certain  Queen  who  thru  the  retention  of  her  menses 
had  her  tongue  inflamed,  a  German  prince  who  was  sick  with 
the  frenzy,  a  gentlewoman  of  name  who  was  troubled  with 
a  suffocation  of  the  matrix,  a  certain  baron  who  was  sorely 
afflicted  with  syphilis:  these  came  with  faith  to  Paracelsus, 
and  the  great  physician  healed  many  wounds,  and  many  in- 
valids became  whole  and  sound. 

Because  of  his  famous  cures,  Paracelsus  was  made  pro- 
fessor at  Basel  —  the  city  thru  which  Vesalius  passed,  and 
further  to  be  renowned  in  science  as  the  residence  of  the 
mathematicians  Euler  and  Bernoulli,  the  anatomist  Sylvius, 
the  surgeon  Wurtz,  the  physiologist  Haller,  the  physicist 
Schonbein,  the  embryologist  William  His. 

In  this  pretty  town,  near  a  chestnut-covered  terrace  that 
overlooks  the  hills  of  the  Black  Forest,  still  stands  the  house 
where  lived  two  illustrious  friends  and  patients  who  sought 
health  at  the  hands  of  Paracelsus  —  Frobenius  the  printer, 
and  Erasmus  the  philosopher. 

So  Paracelsus  came  to  the  University,  looking  as  natural 
as  the  portrait  of  himself,  painted  by  the  great  Tintoretto. 
He  regarded  the  students  with  those  strange  eyes  which  have 
been  described  by  Charles  Kingsley  as  *  wild,  intense,  hun- 
gry, homeless,  defiant  and  yet  complaining  eyes;  the  eyes  of 
a  man  who  struggles  to  tell  a  great  secret,  and  cannot  find 
words  for  it,  and  yet  wonders  why  men  cannot  understand, 
and  will  not  believe  what  seems  to  him  as  clear  as  day.' 

The  new  Professor  did  many  astonishing  things  that  day. 
Instead  of  using  the  monkish  Latin,  he  lectured  in  native  Ger- 
man, which  then  seemed  '  even  to  the  German  emperor,  suit- 
able only  to  address  horses.' 

Paracelsus  had  with  him  a  pile  of  books  —  the  works  of 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE       61 

Galen,  Avicenna,  Averroes  and  other  medical  masters.  It 
was  surprising  to  see  the  iconoclast  in  company  with  these 
authorities.  But  Paracelsus  did  not  quote  from  them.  He 
placed  some  sulphur  in  a  brasier,  set  fire  to  it,  cast  in  the 
sacred  volumes,  and  burnt  up  the  idols.  Festus,  I  plunge! 

'  Follow  me,'  he  cried,  '  not  I  you,  follow  me  Avicenna, 
Galen,  Rhazes,  Montagnana,  Mesue,  and  ye  others!  Follow 
me,  not  I  you!  ye  of  Paris,  Montpellier,  ye  of  Suabia,  ye 
of  Meissen,  ye  of  Cologne,  ye  of  Vienna  and  the  banks  of 
the  Danube  and  the  Rhine,  ye  islands  of  the  sea,  Italy,  Dal- 
matia,  Sarmatia,  Athens,  ye  Greeks,  ye  Arabs,  ye  Israelites, 
not  one  of  you  shall  remain  in  the  remotest  corner  upon  whom 
the  dogs  shall  not  void  their  urine!  How  does  this  please 
you,  Cacophrastus ?  This  dung  must  ye  eat!  And  ye  Cale- 
factores,  ye  shall  become  chimney-sweeps!  What  will  you 
think  when  the  sect  of  Paracelsus  triumphs  ?  I  am  to  be  the 
monarch,  and  the  monarchy  will  belong  to  me.  For  I  tell 
you  boldly  that  the  hair  from  the  back  of  my  head  knows 
more  than  all  your  writers  put  together;  my  shoe-buckles 
have  more  wisdom  in  them  than  either  Galen  or  Avicenna; 
and  my  beard  more  experience  than  your  whole  Academy.' 

Paracelsus  was  not  the  sort  of  man  who  can  occupy  of- 
ficial positions.  He  disturbed  the  doctors  in  their  commer- 
cial transactions.  In  his  capacity  of  town-physician,  he  de- 
manded to  examine  the  drugs  of  the  apothecaries,  to  see 
if  they  were  of  sufficient  purity.  Basel  became  a  vat  where 
trouble  brewed.  It  was  discovered  that  Paracelsus  had  no 
degree.  Objection  was  found  to  his  unprofessional  dress. 
He  was  accused  of  immorality.  His  servant  testified  that 
for  his  own  amusement  Paracelsus  often  conjured  up  legions 
of  devils. 

About  this  time  Paracelsus  and  a  prelate  agreed  that  if 
the  skill  of  the  former  could  remove  the  sickness  of  the  lat- 
ter, one  hundred  florins  should  be  the  reward.  Treatment 
was  commenced,  and  the  disease  disappeared  so  swiftly  that 
the  churchman  thought  six  florins  would  be  adequate  pay- 


62  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

ment.  Paracelsus  brought  the  matter  into  court,  but  the 
judges  found  it  convenient  to  forget  the  law  of  contract,  and 
rendered  a  verdict  for  the  defendant.  Enraged  words  leaped 
to  the  eloquent  tongue  of  that  pugnacious  plaintiff,  and  treat- 
ing the  bench  as  if  it  was  a  prisoner,  and  he  himself  the  magis- 
trate, Paracelsus  delivered  a  lecture  on  justice.  The  legal 
lights  of  Basel  determined  to  punish  this  trespass  into  the 
realms  of  jurisprudence.  The  friends  of  Paracelsus  got 
wind  of  the  matter;  they  informed  him,  and  he  fled. 

For  the  rest  of  his  life  Paracelsus  was  a  homeless  wan- 
derer. In  1528  he  was  at  Colmar;  in  1529  at  Nuremberg; 
in  1530  at  Munich,  Amberg,  Noerdlingen,  Regensburg;  in 
1531  at  St  Gall;  in  1535  we  find  him  at  Appenzall,  Zurich, 
Pfeffers;  in  1536  he  journeyed  to  Augsburg;  he  was  at  Vil- 
lach  in  1538;  in  1540  he  was  at  Mindelheim;  in  1541,  under 
the  protection  of  an  archbishop,  he  came  to  Salzburg  in  the 
Tyrol;  he  needed  rest,  and  soon  found  it. 

In  a  little  inn  called  the  White  Horse,  he  died, —  as  the 
result  of  a  long  debauch,  his  enemies  say. 

And  at  my  door  the  Pale  Horse  stands, 
To  bear  me  forth  to  unknown  lands. 

Three  hundred  and  fifty  years  later  his  skeleton  was  un- 
earthed for  reburial;  an  examination  revealed  the  fact  that 
his  skull  was  smaller  than  the  average,  having  a  capacity  of 
1300  cubic  centimeters,  instead  of  the  usual  1450.  But  a 
more  curious  discovery  was  made.  A  fracture  was  found 
on  his  temporal  bone  which  the  surgeons  declared  could  have 
been  made  only  during  life.  To-day  many  believe  he  was 
assassinated  by  hirelings  of  his  foes.  It  is  doubtful  if  the 
truth  will  ever  be  known. 

A  contradictory  character;  he  blundered  much;  his  mis- 
takes were  manifold,  but  he  had  some  great  ideas,  and  this 
is  a  virtue  that  few  possess. 

Jacobus  Sylvius  was  an  element :  he  was  a  disciple  of  Galen, 
and  could  not  be  subdivided  into  anything  else.  Haller  was 


PARACELSUS,  ICONOCLAST  OF  MEDICINE       63 

an  harmonious  compound:  the  elements  in  him  were  united 
in  certain  definite  proportions.  Paracelsus  was  a  strange 
mixture:  the  multitudinous  elements  that  entered  into  his 
cosmos  were  erratically  arranged. 

In  spite  of  his  adherence  to  mysticism  he  had  the  great  in- 
telligence to  say,  *  Ere  the  world  perishes,  many  arts  now 
ascribed  to  the  work  of  the  devil  will  become  public,  and 
we  shall  then  see  that  the  most  of  these  effects  depend  upon 
natural  forces.' 

Festus,  I  plunge! 


(1511-1553) 
SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR 


SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR 

Since  the  ancients  have  no  right  to  so  noble  a  discovery  as  that  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  inquire,  to  whom  of 
the  moderns  the  glory  of  it  is  due;  for  this  is  also  exceedingly  contested. 
The  first  step  that  was  made  towards  it,  was  the  finding  that  the  whole 
mass  of  the  blood  passes  thru  the  lungs,  by  the  pulmonary  artery  and 
vein.  The  first  that  I  could  ever  find  that  had  a  distinct  idea  of  this 
matter,  was  Michael  Servetus,  a  Spanish  physician. 

W.  WOTTOX,  in  1694. 

AN  orange  orchard  in  Hispania,  with  olive  trees  upon  the 
hills,  a  fountain  weeping  crystal  tears  by  moonlight,  an  an- 
cient castle  in  the  distance,  a  golden-sanded  river  flowing 
along  a  flower-laden  shore. 

Paler  yet  than  ever  the  lover  looks  to-night,  and  gently  his 
trembling  fingers  tinkle  the  guitar.  He  nears  the  silvery 
fountain  so  its  dashing  spray  can  cool  his  heated  brow.  The 
night-air  bears  his  song  of  sorrow  to  the  moon,  but  no  fair 
hand  is  at  the  lattice,  and  no  sweet  face  peeps  forth  from  the 
casement. 

His  passion  rises,  a  string  breaks, —  of  the  guitar  only  ? 
His  stricken  voice  halts  in  his  throat,  he  is  silent.  .  .  . 
The  green-leaved  vines  climb  upon  the  wall  —  up  to  her 
chamber-window.  He  will  cling  to  them,  he  too  will  raise 
himself, —  up  to  her  chamber-window.  He  climbs,  he 
whispers,  no  answer,  he  calls,  he  cries  misericordias,  he  waits, 
a  faint  step  —  O,  with  what  a  mad  and  fevered  ecstasy  he 
lifts  his  free  hand  to  the  moon!  The  step  comes  closer,  the 
air  grows  sweeter,  heaven  draws  nearer, —  she  opens  her 
chamber-window.  She  speaks,  '  My  love,  I  come  to  thee.' 

They  walk  in  the  garden  below.  How  fragrant  are  the 
orange-blossoms  to-night,  and  so  musically  the  cascade  falls, 

67 


68 

—  is  it  keeping  time  with  a  Spanish  love-ditty  ?  Dip  thy 
fingers  in  the  fountain,  perilous  maiden,  and  soothe  the  youth's 
fevered  brow,  for  he  burns  and  the  fault  is  thine.  False  was 
the  advice, —  who  would  not  go  blissful  delirious  at  thy  touch? 
Ah,  beauty  of  Spain,  be  kind, —  what  night  better  than  this  ? 
With  the  moon  for  a  marriage-ring,  the  white  blossoms  for 
thy  bridal  veil,  the  olive  trees  for  canopy,  the  flowing  cascade 
for  hymeneal  song,  and  the  voice  of  the  nightingale  for  priest? 
They  melt  into  each  other's  arms,  they  swoon  with  the  passion 
divine. 

Sweet-night,  dream-night,  love-night, —  must  thou  end  ?  A 
cock  is  crowing  for  the  dawn,  but  the  moon  tho  wan,  still 
glimmers  in  the  heavens,  therefore,  sleep  yet  on.  .  .  . 
The  cock  crows  again, —  lustily.  Alas,  that  those  entwining 
arms  should  be  released.  The  sun  is  above  thee  —  awake. 

'  The  day  is  abroad,'  speaks  Michael  Servetus,  '  and  I  must 

go-' 

'  Ah  me,'  she  sighs,  '  do  not  go  from  me.  Linger  yet 
awhile  within  the  shadow  of  my  olive  trees.' 

'  I  leave  this  land '  answers  Michael  Servetus,  *  even  now 
the  Inquisitors  search  for  me  and  the  sun  is  red.' 

And  something  sombre  and  severe 
O'er  the  enchanted  landscape  reigned 

A  terror  in  the  atmosphere 

As  if  King  Philip  listened  near, 

Or  Torquemada  the  austere, 
His  ghostly  sway  maintained. 

The  spirit  of  Spain  was  expressed  by  Isabella :  '  In  the  name 
of  Christ  and  his  maidmother,'  said  the  Queen,  '  I  have  caused 
great  misery,  and  have  depopulated  towns  and  districts  and 
provinces  and  kingdoms.'  In  the  soft  warm  land  of  Spain 
the  auto-da-fe  was  in  its  glory,  and  the  curling  smoke  from 
the  hell-fires  of  the  Inquisition  mingled  with  the  sailing 
clouds,  and  cunning  instruments  were  plied  upon  the  sensi- 
tive nerves  of  pain,  and  the  ruddy  life-fluid  of  Hebrews  red- 
dened the  dirty  gutters,  and  darkened  chambers  heard  the 


SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR  69 

shrieks  of  mangled  unbelievers,  and  in  sympathy  the  crim- 
son sun  streaked  the  Spanish  sky  with  blood! 

Michael  Servetus  came  from  Spain.  Spain  was  a  good 
country  for  a  thinker  to  come  from.  That  is,  it  was  bet- 
ter to  come  from  there  than  to  stay  there.  Servetus  left  Spain 
to  escape  the  fagots  of  the  Inquisition  —  he  had  no  desire  to 
die  in  a  scorching  blaze.  He  thought  the  Protestant  coun- 
tries would  be  more  tolerant  than  his  Papist  Hispania. 

Servetus  was  mistaken  when  he  imagined  that  the  Luth- 
erans and  Calvinists  would  permit  independent  speculation. 
These  men  broke  away  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Popes  —  but 
they  established  a  tyranny  of  their  own.  Nor  were  they 
more  favorably  disposed  towards  science  than  the  older  eccle- 
siastics —  they  accepted  only  the  science  of  the  Pentateuch. 
When  Copernicus  published  his  book  on  the  orbits  of  celestial 
bodies,  the  Protestant  joined  with  the  Catholic  in  a  chorus  of 
denunciation,  and  Luther  himself  declared,  '  The  fool  wants 
to  upset  the  whole  science  of  astronomy,  but  as  Holy  Scrip- 
tures show,  Joshua  commanded  the  sun  to  stand  still,  and  not 
the  earth.' 

Servetus  was  the  greatest  man  of  his  age.  His  brain  was 
the  torch  that  burned  to  enlighten  the  world.  He  was  the 
irritant  that  caused  the  sixteenth  century  to  turn  uneasy  in  its 
sleep.  It  could  not  rest  till  he  was  off  the  earth.  No  nation 
was  big  enough  to  hold  him  —  he  came,  he  taught,  he  was 
banished.  Servetus  was  beyond  the  Renaissance.  Nearer 
the  truth  than  his  contemporaries,  Servetus  was  a  type  of  the 
intellectual  outcast. 

Whatever  subject  he  touched,  he  illumined.  When  he  ed- 
ited the  geographical  work  of  Ptolemy,  his  notes  showed  that 
he  did  not  consider  geography  merely  a  matter  of  maps.  His 
intellect  was  broad  enough  to  grasp  the  connection  that  geog- 
raphy had  with  botany,  zoology  and  astronomy.  He  was  the 
first  to  recognize  this  important  relationship  of  the  sciences, 
and  Tollin  and  other  authorities  consider  him  the  Father  of 
Comparative  Geography. 


70  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

In  the  preface,  Servetus,  writing  as  a  geographer  and  not 
as  a  panegyrist,  said :  '  Judea  has  been  falsely  cried  up  for 
beauty,  richness,  and  fertility,  since  those,  who  have  traveled 
in  it  have  found  it  poor,  barren  and  utterly  devoid  of  pleas- 
antness.' Because  of  this  statement  he  was  accused  of  at- 
tacking the  authority  of  Moses,  who  had  described  Judea 
as  a  land  overflowing  with  milk  and  honey! 

His  theological  views,  of  a  pantheistic  nature,  caused  him 
to  be  equally  abhorred  by  Catholic  and  Protestant.  Michael 
Servetus  did  not  believe  in  the  Trinity,  was  tolerant  to  Jews 
and  Moors,  and  bothered  little  with  Original  Sin  and  Bap- 
tism of  Infants.  Therefore  Martin  Bucer,  who  is  described 
as  a  very  moderate  man,  used  very  moderate  language  and 
said  that  Servetus  should  only  be  torn  to  pieces  and  disem- 
bowelled. And  Philip  Melancthon,  whom  everyone  called 
mild,  wished  in  a  mild  sort  of  way  that  the  heretical  Spaniard 
should  merely  be  done  to  death  by  sword  or  fire. 

The  book  in  which  Servetus  first  set  forth  his  heterodox 
opinions  was  published  at  Haguenau  in  1531  and  entitled  De 
Trinitatis  Erroribus.  It  brought  him  into  collision  with  a 
theologian  who  believed  strongly  in  the  Trinity.  He  was  an 
uncanny  individual  —  everything  that  was  human  was  alien 
to  him.  He  was  a  cold  soul,  and  could  warm  himself  only 
at  the  flames  of  hell.  His  only  joy  consisted  in  contemplat- 
ing the  fact  that  at  least  nine-tenths  of  mankind  were  predes- 
tined to  eternal  damnation.  He  was  not  ashamed  to  declare 
that  the  infant,  while  yet  in  the  mother's  womb,  was  already 
an  abomination  to  God.  He  formulated  a  theological  system 
so  pitiless,  that  if  the  lower  animals  could  understand  it,  thru- 
out  the  jungle  would  run  a  shudder  at  the  inhumane  dogmas. 
His  Ordonnances  Ecclesiastiques  were  iron  rules  which  were 
enforced  with  unyielding  rigor.  He  not  only  announced  the 
opinions  that  his  flock  at  Geneva  must  entertain,  but  he  pre- 
scribed the  garments  that  all  must  wear.  He  whipped  a  girl 
for  singing  a  song.  He  considered  himself  a  reformer;  he 
broke  away  from  the  tyranny  of  the  Popes,  but  he  established 


SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR  71 

a  theocracy  of  his  own  —  including  a  Protestant  Inquisition. 
Spies  eavesdropped  among  the  people ;  for  any  nonconformity, 
howsoever  slight  or  unintentional,  the  harshest  punishments 
were  administered;  physical  measures  were  employed,  and 
often  the  cries  of  tortured  prisoners  made  Switzerland  re- 
semble Spain.  He  might  even  be  willing  to  burn  a  heretic. 
No  doubt  this  man  was  sincere,  but  he  was  also  conceited:  he 
thought  an  insult  to  John  Calvin  was  blasphemy  against  God. 

Calvin  engaged  in  polemics  with  Servetus.  Servetus  de- 
feated him.  At  least  that  was  the  general  opinion  at  the 
time,  and  when  Calvin  heard  a  laugh  at  his  expense,  wounded 
pride  rankled  in  his  unforgiving  bosom;  furious  and  malev- 
olent, he  waited  for  revenge.  But  enough  of  Calvin  —  for 
the  present;  we  may  meet  him  again. 

At  Lyons,  while  engaged  in  editing  scientific  works  for  the 
firm  of  Trechsel,  Servetus  became  friendly  with  the  physician 
Symphorien  Champier.  Dr  Champier,  like  the  other  scholars 
of  the  period  of  the  Revival  of  Learning,  eulogized  Hippoc- 
rates and  Galen  in  highest  hyperbole ;  he  clamored  to  see  them 
in  their  own  dress,  for  altho  the  Greeks  had  remained  authori- 
ties all  during  the  Middle  Ages,  they  were  not  known  in  the 
original,  but  only  thru  faulty  translations,  and  by  means  of 
commentaries  and  compilations,  chiefly  from  Arabic  sources. 
The  enthusiasts  refused  to  drink  any  longer  from  these  second- 
hand sources  —  they  thirsted  for  the  fountain-heads  of  knowl- 
edge. On  all  sides  was  heard  the  cry  for  Greece  and  Rome; 
Christian,  Hebrew  and  Mohammedan,  gave  way  to  the  resur- 
rected glory  of  Hellas.  The  awakened  cities  fought,  not  for 
the  spoils  of  war,  but  for  classic  manuscripts. 

In  those  days  Lyons  was  one  of  the  intellectual  centers 
where  Athens  was  born  again.  Besides  Champier  and  Serve- 
tus, Rabelais  was  there,  fresh  from  his  lectures  on  Hippoc- 
rates and  Galen  at  Montpellier,  now  editing  the  Aphorisms  of 
the  former  and  the  Ars  Parva  of  the  latter.  But  it  was  not 
as  a  physician  that  the  world's  greatest  humorist  was  to  earn 
his  laurels. 


72  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

At  Lyons  was  also  Rabelais'  friend,  the  talented  Etienne 
Dolet,  loud  in  his  praises  of  Cicero,  and  printing  everything 
interesting  that  came  into  his  hands  —  but  not  for  long,  for 
the  theological  faculty  of  the  Sorbonne  accused  the  young 
man  of  atheism,  and  he  was  strangled  and  burnt.  Ah, 
medievalism  was  not  dead,  after  all.  It  was  a  dangerous  age 
for  a  thinker  like  Michael  Servetus.. 

Servetus  decided  to  follow  the  profession  of  Champier, 
and  accordingly  registered  at  the  renowned  University  of 
Paris.,  Jacobus  Sylvius,  who  has  given  his  name  to  the 
artery,  aqueduct  and  fissure  of  Sylvius,  was  the  shining  light 
of  the  faculty ;  he  possessed  ability  —  and  a  despicable  char- 
acter. 

A  more  interesting  personality  was  Joannes  Guinterius. 
Here  was  a  man  who  had  risen  from  the  depths;  he  had 
stood  in  the  streets  of  Deventer,  imploring  the  passersby  for 
bread.  But  hunger  never  prevented  Guinterius  from  study- 
ing Greek,  and  the  learned  beggar  became  a  professor  in  the 
University  of  Louvain.  But  even  success  did  not  chill  his 
passion  for  knowledge,  and  at  the  age  of  forty  he  began  to 
study  medicine.  After  graduation,  he  remained  in  Paris, 
practicing  and  teaching,  and  translating  the  Greek  physicians 
into  Latin.  Other  events  crowded  into  his  career;  when  the 
Reformation  came,  Guinterius  sided  with  Luther,  and  his 
life  was  endangered;  he  wandered  from  place  to  place,  but 
romance  dogged  his  footsteps,  and  Guinterius  eventually  be- 
came a  nobleman  of  Strassburg. 

Guinterius  was  delighted  with  the  vivacious  Servetus. 
Guinterius  had  another  pupil  whom  he  admired  —  a  Nether- 
lander whose  scalpel  opened  up  the  era  of  modern  medicine  — 
and  the  teacher  linked  the  names  of  these  earnest  scholars : 
'  Andreas  Vesalius,  a  young  man,  by  Hercules !  of  singular 
zeal  in  the  study  of  anatomy;  and  Michael  Servetus,  deeply 
imbued  with  learning  of  every  kind,  and  behind  none  in  his 
knowledge  of  the  Galenic  doctrine.  With  the  aid  of  these 
two,  I  have  examined  the  muscles,  veins,  arteries  and  nerves 


SERVETUS 


SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR  73 

of  the  whole  body,  and  demonstrated  them  to  all  the  students.' 

In  1538,  Servetus  graduated  with  the  highest  honors.  He 
became  a  lecturer  at  the  university  on  the  medical  sciences 
and  mathematics,  and  his  wide  and  varied  culture  attracted 
distinguished  visitors,  including  the  Archbishop  of  Vienne, 
whose  confidential  physician  Servetus  became. 

A  life  of  peace,  and  much  glory  and  money  would  have 
been  his,  had  he  been  able  to  keep  his  critical  faculty  in  abey- 
ance. But  this  was  the  one  thing  Michael  Servetus  could 
not  do.  He  published  a  learned  medical  work,  Syruporum 
Universa  Ratio,  in  which  from  a  therapeutic  and  physiological 
standpoint  he  criticized  the  great  Galen,  whose  pre-eminent 
authority  as  an  anatomist  was  after  an  elapse  of  fourteen 
centuries  at  last  to  be  undermined  by  the  publication  of  Vesa- 
lius'  monumental  De  Humani  Corporis  Fabrica,  while  his 
knowledge  of  obstetrics  was  attacked  by  the  famous  midwife, 
Louise  Bourgeois,  who  claimed  that  the  unmarried  master 
never  knew  the  pregnant  uterus  of  a  woman.  It  was  not  only 
Galenism,  but  the  Arabian  system  which  was  then  much  in 
vogue,  that  Servetus  sought  to  displace. 

His  book  was  a  distinct  advance  in  the  art  of  prescribing. 
For  the  nauseous  mixtures  —  the  mere  names  of  which  now 
act  as  emetics  —  he  introduced  more  palatable  drugs ;  in  these 
pages  we  see  the  first  rational  attempt  to  avoid  incompatibili- 
ties, and  we  find  also  the  first  suggestion  of  what  the  pharma- 
cist calls  vehicles,  that  is,  pleasant-smelling  and  sweet-tasting 
ingredients  of  no  use  in  themselves,  but  valuable  as  carrying 
other  drugs  of  therapeutic  action. 

In  those  days  people  took  books  seriously,  and  Syruporum 
Universa  Ratio  aroused  intense  antagonism.  The  Faculty  of 
Paris  attempted  to  impeach  Servetus.  Dissensions  divided 
the  university,  riots  occurred  in  the  streets,  and  some  of  the 
students  were  severely  injured.  Who  to-day  would  get  ex- 
cited over  a  treatise  on  sweetened  syrups? 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Servetus  was  not  averse  to  argu- 
mentation. He  had  a  ready  tongue  and  a  facile  pen  —  and 


74  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

he  liked  to  use  both.  There  must  have  been  a  sort  of  child- 
like vanity  about  him,  for  he  sent  Calvin  one  of  his  manu- 
scripts and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  it. 

A  stranger  rode  into  Louyset,  and  the  next  day  wandered 
into  Geneva,  where  he  earnestly  asked  for  a  boat  to  take  him 
toward  Zurich  on  his  way  to  Naples.  He  had  escaped  from 
prison,  and  like  Baumgarten  in  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell,  might 
have  exclaimed : 

Then  must  I  fall  into  the  tyrant's  hands, 
And  with  the  port  of  safety  close  in  sight! 
Yonder  it  lies  —  I  reach  it  with  mine  eyes, 
My  very  voice  can  echo  to  its  shores; 
There  is  the  boat  to  carry  me  across; 
Yet  here  despairing,  helpless  must  I  lie! 

Unhappier  was  his  fate,  for  instead  of  the  helping  hand  of 
the  Swiss  hero  to  row  him  thru  the  storm  in  safety,  the  des- 
potic voice  of  Calvin,  like  a  second  Gessler,  was  heard  com- 
manding his  immediate  arrest.  Servetus  was  again  impris- 
oned, and  the  Christian  Hercules  (as  Beza  called  Calvin)  la- 
bored for  a  death-sentence. 

The  trial  lasted  from  August  till  October,  and  several  pas- 
sages deemed  heretical  were  read  from  Servetus'  latest  book, 
which  had  recently  been  published  —  Christianismi  Restitutio. 
Calvin,  tirelessly  malignant,  was  the  chief  prosecutor.  There 
was  no  escape  from  the  implacable  Genevan.  Servetus  had 
defeated  him  once  —  it  was  now  Calvin's  turn.  He  had  the 
infidel  on  the  hip  and  he  smote  him  hard.  Yet  even  without 
Calvin,  Servetus'  life  was  in  danger,  for  during  the  month 
of  June  he  had  been  burnt  in  effigy  at  Vienne,  and  in  July  the 
Roman  Catholic  Inquisition  condemned  him  to  death.  But 
as  Calvin  was  anxious  for  the  honor  of  burning  a  heretic,  he 
would  not  relinquish  Michael  Servetus,  and  on  October  26, 
1553,  his  tribunal  read  the  following  judgment: 

'  Against  Michael  Servetus  of  Villeneuve,  in  the  kingdom  of 
Arragon,  in  Spain :  Because  in  his  book  he  calls  the  Trinity 
a  devil,  and  a  monster  with  three  heads;  because  contrary  to 


SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR  75 

what  Scripture  says,  he  calls  Jesus  Christ  a  Son  of  David; 
and  says  that  the  baptism  of  little  infants  is  only  an  invention 
of  witchcraft;  and  because  of  many  other  points  and  articles 
and  execrable  blasphemies  with  which  the  said  book  is  all 
stuffed,  hugely  scandalous  and  against  the  honor  and  majesty 
of  God,  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and  be- 
cause Servetus,  full  of  malice,  has  entitled  his  book  thus 
directed  against  God  and  the  holy  evangelical  doctrine,  Res- 
toration of  Christianity,  and  that  for  the  better  seducing  and 
deceiving  the  poor  ignorants,  and  for  more  easily  infecting 
with  his  unhappy  and  wretched  poison  the  readers  of  his  said 
book,  under  the  shade  of  sound  doctrine:  therefore 

*  For  these  and  other  just  reasons  us  hereto  moving,  desir- 
ing to  purge  the  Church  of  God  of  such  infection,  and  to  cut 
off  from  it  a  corrupt  member  —  having  well  consulted  with  our 
fellow-citizens,  and  having  invoked  the  name  of  God  to  guide 
us  to  right  judgment,  sitting  on  the  tribunal  in  the  place  of 
our  ancestors  —  having  God,  and  His  Holy  Scriptures  before 
our  eyes,  saying  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  by  this  our  definite  sentence  which  we  give 
here  in  writing,  we  condemn  thee,  M.  Servetus,  to  be  bound, 
and  led  to  the  place  of  Champel,  there  to  be  fastened  to  a  stake, 
and  burned  alive,  with  thy  book,  as  well  written  by  thy  hand 
as  printed,  even  till  thy  body  be  reduced  to  ashes,  and  thus 
wilt  thou  finish  thy  days,  to  furnish  an  example  to  others  who 
might  wish  to  commit  the  like.' 

As  said  before,  parts  of  his  latest  book  were  read  as  evi- 
dence against  him,  but  there  was  a  certain  passage  which  the 
prosecution  overlooked,  so  we  will  quote  it  here : 

'  The  vital  spirit,'  wrote  Servetus,  '  is  generated  by  the  mix- 
ture in  the  lungs  of  the  inspired  air  with  the  subtly  elaborated 
blood,  which  the  right  ventricle  sends  to  the  left.  The  com- 
munication between  the  ventricles,  however,  is  not  made  thru 
the  midwall  of  the  heart,  but  in  a  wonderful  way  the  fluid 
blood  is  conducted  by  a  long  detour  from  the  right  ventricle 
thru  the  lungs,  where  it  is  acted  on  by  the  lungs  and  becomes 


76  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

red  in  color,  passes  from  the  arteria  venosa  into  the  vena  ar- 
teriosa,  whence  it  is  finally  drawn  by  the  diastole  into  the  left 
ventricle/ 

Reader,  this  remarkable  passage  was  the  first  complete  ac- 
count of  the  lesser  circulation !  There  stood  Michael  Servetus, 
the  discoverer  of  the  pulmonic  circulation  of  the  blood,  the 
anticipator  of  Harvey,  condemned  to  death  for  writing  the 
book  that  contained  the  most  momentous  physiological  dis- 
covery of  the  time.  So  effectually  was  the  edition  destroyed, 
that  Harvey  knew  not  his  true  precursor.  Harvey  quotes 
Realdus  Columbus,  but  not  Michael  Servetus.  But  closer 
than  Columbus  or  Caesalpinus  or  Vesalius  or  Fallopius,  had 
Servetus  come  to  solving  the  riddle  of  the  circulation.  He  de- 
served the  blessings  of  the  world,  but  received  a  death-sen- 
tence. No  voice  was  raised  in  his  behalf.  Not  only  John 
Calvin,  but  all  Christendom,  was  guilty. 

As  the  fatal  day  approached,  a  visitor  entered  Servetus' 
cell.  It  was  John  Calvin.  The  prisoner  looked  at  the  pale 
face  and  burning  eyes  of  the  bigot,  but  remained  silent.  His 
passion  for  discussion  had  deserted  him  —  perhaps  he  had 
cast  enough  invaluable  pearls  before  uncomprehending  swine. 
The  opponents  parted  forever. 

It  was  the  melancholy  month  —  October.  Pensive  Au- 
tumn faintly  sighed,  the  trees  had  shed  their  glory,  and  the 
fields  were  filled  with  pain. 

Under  an  ancient  arcade  the  processions  passed.  Beneath 
the  gate  of  the  castle  they  marched.  The  Bourg-de-Four  they 
crossed,  and  ascended  the  street  of  Saint  Anthony.  South- 
ward they  turned,  and  left  the  walls  of  the  town.  The  Lord- 
Lieutenant  rode  a  mighty  horse,  and  by  his  side  galloped  a  her- 
ald. Behind  them  came  the  archers,  and  in  the  midst  of  all 
walked  a  proud  and  taciturn  physician  whose  prescriptions 
had  failed  to  purge  the  age  of  fanaticism.  A  crowd  swelled 
the  rear  —  poor  and  unlearned  —  but  not  one  in  all  that 
throng  envied  him  who  walked  in  silence. 


SERVETUS,  THE  MEDICAL  MARTYR  77 

The  sick  leaves  moaned,  the  dead  leaves  fell.  Destruction 
was  in  the  air. 

A  little  hill  lay  before  the  procession.  Up  this  incline  rode 
the  Lord-Lieutenant,  followed  by  the  others.  The  summit 
was  gained,  and  then  the  eye  gazed  on  the  scene  which  has  en- 
chanted a  thousand  inspired  poets.  Far  away  gleamed  the 
deep  blue  waters  of  the  lovely  Lake  of  Geneva,  formed  like  a 
graceful  halfmoon,  and  on  one  side,  as  if  guarding  the  verdant 
valley,  towered  an  undulating  ridge  of  lofty  mountains. —  A 
dying  leaf  shook  among  the  branches,  and  losing  its  hold  was 
swept  away  by  the  wind. 

On  the  hill  was  set  a  stake  around  which  were  piled  the 
fagots  —  of  green  wood  so  they  would  burn  slowly.  Michael 
Servetus  was  a  devoted  believer  in  God,  and  even  warmly  at- 
tached to  the  person  of  Christ,  but  because  he  rejected  the 
Trinity,  the  multitude  considered  him  an  incorrigible  atheist, 
and  a  child  who  was  present  at  the  execution  might  have  used 
the  words  Shelley  wrote  when  a  boy : 

I  was  an  infant  when  my  mother  went 

To  see  an  atheist  burned.    She  took  nte  there: 

The  dark-robed  priests  were  met  around  the  pile; 

The  multitude  was  gazing  silently; 

And  as  the  culprit  passed  with  dauntless  mien, 

Tempered  disdain  in  his  unaltering  eye, 

Mixed  with  a  quiet  smile,  shone  calmly  forth: 

The  thirsty  fire  crept  round  his  manly  limbs; 

His  resolute  eyes  were  scorched  to  blindness  soon; 

His  death-pang  rent  my  heart!  the  insensate  mob 

Uttered  a  cry  of  triumph,  and  I  wept. 

Weep  not,  child!  cried  my  mother,  for  that  man 

Has  said,  There  is  no  God. 

By  several  twists  of  an  iron  chain,  Servetus  was  bound  to 
the  stake.  To  mock  him,  a  crown  of  straw  dipped  in  sulphur 
was  put  upon  his  head.  By  his  side  they  tied  the  child  of  his 
brain  —  the  book  that  should  have  made  an  epoch.  The 
torch  blazed,  and  a  hot  sheet  of  flame,  as  if  it  were  the  spirit 
of  Calvin,  leapt  high  in  air  and  pounced  upon  his  body. 


78  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

.  .  .  .  Thru  the  escaping  smoke  Michael  Servetus  lifted 
his  unseeing  eyes  to  heaven,  and  cried  in  agony,  Misericordias! 
Misericordias ! 

O  miracle  accursed  —  Spain  had  come  to  Switzerland  — 
Behold,  how  the  crimson  sun  did  streak  the  skies  with  blood! 


(1514-1564) 
VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST 

Vesalius  appears  to  me  one  of  the  greatest  men  who  ever  existed. 
Let  the  astronomers  vaunt  their  Copernicus,  the  natural  philosophers 
their  Galileo  and  Torricelli,  the  mathematicians  their  Pascal,  the  geogra- 
phers their  Columbus,  I  shall  always  place  Vesalius  above  all  their  heroes. 
The  first  study  for  man  is  man.  Vesalius  had  this  noble  object  in  view, 
and  admirably  attained  it. 

PORTAL:  History  of  Anatomy. 

THE  day  merges  itself  in  the  museful  dusk,  it  yields  to  the 
silent  caress  of  the  clasping  shadows,  it  permits  the  pensive 
embrace  of  the  gentle  evening. 

Yet  all  is  not  dim  nor  darkness  —  there  is  still  twilight  and 
starlight  and  moonlight,  and  lo!  from  the  window  gleams  the 
cheerful  lamplight. 

Cease  to  ply  your  tasks,  O  men.  Follow  the  nearest  path 
that  leads  to  home.  For  you  a  flame  is  burning,  and  a  loving 
woman  waits.  Do  not  tarry,  for  she  expects  you.  If  you 
linger  she  will  peer  with  anxious  eyes  into  the  night  —  and 
see  nothing.  See,  she  keeps  the  supper  warm,  and  your  chair 
is  ready.  Take  your  place  at  the  head  of  the  table  and  sit 
among  your  family.  Hasten,  the  darkness  is  deepening. 

Soon  the  soft-shod  Morpheus  lowers  his  sable  curtain,  and 
all  the  world  seeks  its  bed  and  travels  to  the  City  of  Sleep. 
On  the  pillows  of  forgetf ulness  it  lies,  and  covers  its  body  with 
the  blankets  of  peace.  The  bustle  is  stopped,  and  quarrels 
are  over  at  last.  Anger  is  gone  and  sorrow  has  fled.  Now 
worry  is  routed,  and  misery  made  to  halt.  Here  are  the  por- 
tals of  repose;  come  and  enter,  O  weeping  eyes  and  wounded 
heart.  Where  are  the  tears,  and  what  has  become  of  pain? 
Ah,  they  enter  not  the  beautiful  land  of  oblivion,  and  of  them 
the  slumberers  know  naught.  Soft  is  the  air  of  dreamland, 

81 


8®  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

and  easily  it  is  inhaled.  Chant  the  lullaby  song  of  rest,  and 
raise  not  your  mantle,  O  somnolent  god.  Over  all  silently 
waves  the  soundless  banner  of  a  silken  calm. 

Sleep  on,  weary  world ;  sleep,  sleep,  sleep. 

Refrain — >  f or  all  do  not  sleep.  The  night  has  a  life  as 
intense  as  day.  It  is  then  that  the  humble  badger  comes  from 
its  burrow  and  the  cricket  chirps  to  its  little  mate.  It  is  then 
that  the  lonely  poet  stands  beneath  the  stars  and  frees  his 
soul  from  'the  limitations  of  time  and  space.  In  the  damp  of 
the  night  the  caterpillars  crawl  forth  to  feed  on  the  leaves, 
and  the  plaintive  whip-poor-will  laments  its  name  in  sadness. 
Now  the  nightingale's  golden  tongue  is  unloosed,  and  like  a 
song-intoxicated  spirit  it  warbles  a  melody  to  the  beloved  and 
blushful  rose.  The  solemn  owl,  that  on  the  bough  of  the 
sycamore  tree  blinked  like  a  fool  all  day,  has  become  the  king 
of  the  air  and  will  outface  the  royal  eagle.  With  a  deep  and 
doleful  tone  it  hoots  thru  the  silent  forests,  and  its  mysterious, 
melancholy  voice,  so  ghost-like  and  ghastly,  sends  a  thrill  of 
terror  thru  the  hearts  of  oak.  Fearlessly  outspreading  its 
pinions  it  sweeps  like  a  silence  over  the  distant  hills  —  the 
hunter  of  the  night  is  after  his  prey. 

Strange  women,  members  of  the  oldest  of  professions, 
smile  upon  men  they  have  not  seen  before.  Across  the  way, 
at  the  next  house,  a  faint  cry  is  heard  —  a  new  individual  has 
begun  its  existence. 

The  night  is  the  time  for  lovers  —  the  whole  earth  swarms 
with  them.  The  night  is  their  trysting-time,  for  they  are  wor- 
shipers of  the  moon.  The  night  kindly  hides  them  from  the 
outside  world,  and  converts  every  retreat  into  a  holy  place. 
.  .  .  .  A  little  canoe  glides  along  the  placid  stream 
.  .  .  .  the  oar  ceases  to  be  held,  the  unguided  boat  drifts 
with  the  tide  .  .  .  but  think  not  it  is  empty.  Arm-in- 
arm  thru  Lovers'  Lane  they  wander;  many  sit  at  the  water's 
edge ;  and  there  is  scarce  a  spreading  tree  but  shelters  a  youth 
and  a  maid.  Into  this  sacred  secrecy  we  must  no  longer  pry, 
for  the  gentle  words  that  are  now  uttered  are  meant  for  them- 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST  83 

selves  alone  and  the  brooding  night  —  the  night  that  has  a  ro- 
mantic heart  but  tells  no  tales. 

Alas!  that  some  should  wish  the  night  to  cover  deeds  that 
daylight  must  not  see.  Hark,  why  are  the  footsteps  of  that 
fellow  as  silent  as  his  shadow?  If  he  had  the  wings  of  the 
bat  he  could  not  sail  more  noiseless  thru  the  air.  The  furred 
cat  could  learn  from  him  the  soundless  tread.  To  the  end 
of  the  town  he  walks,  and  e'en  when  the  watchful  dogs  bark 
aloud  he  is  as  quiet  as  the  swinging  carcass  of  the  convict  that 
hangs  moldering  on  the  gibbet.  Ah!  save  us,  Virgin  Mary, 
for  thither  is  he  bound.  Stealthily  he  climbs  the  slippery  steps 
and  steals  the  corpse.  (The  moon  looks  calmly  at  his  pale 
face.)  Oh,  ye  blessed  saints,  protect  us  from  his  evil  eye  — 
it  is  the  same  youth  that  last  week  robbed  the  charnel  house 
and  dug  the  dead  from  their  graves ! 

The  living  thief  descends  from  the  gallows  and  carries  the 
dead  thief  on  his  shoulder.  A  figure  emerges  from  the  gloom. 
Heaven  grant  it  be  an  officer  of  the  law.  Well,  it  is,  but  he 
sees  nothing  and  passes  on.  The  youth  drags  the  decompos- 
ing carcass  toward  his  home.  Its  odor  is  frightful,  but  it 
does  not  offend  his  nostrils.  He  clutches  the  decayed  frame 
tighter,  it  is  to  him  a  precious  thing. 

At  last  it  is  safe  in  his  own  room.  Impatiently  the  eager 
anatomist  draws  his  knife  and  begins  at  once  to  cut  the  body. 
If  he  be  discovered,  he  too  may  be  among  the  dead,  for  the 
Merciful  Church  expressly  forbids  the  dissection  of  dead 
human  bodies,  and  this  very  year  the  fires  of  the  Inquisition 
have  saved  many  heretic  souls  by  burning  their  sinful  flesh. 
Aye,  it  would  go  hard  for  the  impious  youth,  and  rightly  too, 
for  the  infallible  Church  has  always  preached  that  as  God  took 
a  rib  from  Adam  to  make  Eve,  man  has  one  rib  less  than 
woman,  but  since  this  bold  blasphemer  began  to  dissect  human 
bodies  he  has  discovered  the  untruth  of  this  theory. 

Have  a  care,  Vesalius,  or  the  hot  flames  of  the  Holy  In- 
quisition will  burn  your  own  body  into  an  ash  for  the  winds 
to  scatter. 


84  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Now  the  moon  goes  away,  and  the  traveling  sun  comes 
home.  The  badger  has  returned  to  its  hole,  and  the  voice  of 
the  cricket  is  still.  The  poet's  vision  is  faded,  and  the  sor- 
rowful whip-poor-will  is  silent.  The  caterpillar  has  ceased 
its  feast,  and  the  nightingale  sings  no  more  to  the  bashful 
rose.  The  helpless  owl  is  stupid  again,  and  weaker  birds 
dash  with  impunity  against  his  blinking  eyes. 

The  day  with  all  its  duties  has  dawned,  and  the  fond  lovers 
have  separated. 

They  who  have  done  unlawful  deeds  by  night  now  tremble 
at  the  blazing  sun  and  its  searching  rays,  but  Andreas  Vesalius 
is  unafraid.  This  proud  moment  he  would  defy  the  Council, 
and  the  piled-up  fagots  of  the  dreaded  Inquisition  could  not 
make  him  recant.  In  his  eyes  shines  a  light  that  seems  to 
dazzle  the  beams  of  the  heavenly  sun  itself.  He,  too,  feels 
himself  high  .  .  .  high  .  .  .  above  all  clouds.  So 
Praxagoras  must  have  looked  and  felt  when  first  he  distin- 
guished arteries  from  veins,  for  during  the  night  Vesalius  has 
discovered  the  structure  of  the  human  heart ! 

Vesalius  was  a  born  dissector;  as  a  child  he  cut  up  the 
bodies  of  mice  and  moles,  of  cats  and  dogs, —  not  for  sport, 
but  for  knowledge.  *  It's  in  the  blood,'  explained  his  mother 
as  she  watched  him  at  work,  for  his  great-great-grandfather 
had  written  commentaries  on  Avicenna,  his  great-grandfather 
taught  medicine  at  Louvain,  his  grandfather  was  the  phy- 
sician of  Mary  of  Burgundy,  and  his  father  was  apothecary  to 
Charles  V. 

Vesalius  was  a  magnificent  youth:  he  was  dissatisfied  with 
existing  conditions.  In  his  day,  men  learned  anatomy  by 
studying  Galen,  not  by  dissecting  corpses.  '  If  you  trust 
Galen,  why  dissect  ? '  they  asked,  and  since  everyone  believed 
Galen,  nobody  dissected.  When  it  did  become  necessary  to 
make  practical  demonstrations  to  students,  the  lower  animals 
were  employed,  usually  a  pig.  Human  cadavera  were  seldom 
exhibited.  Moreover  the  scholastic  pedants  who  taught 
anatomy  did  not  deign  to  wield  the  .scalpel  themselves;  the 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST  86 

professor  sat  on  an  elevated  seat,  generally  with  a  copy  of 
Galen  and  Avicenna  before  him,  and  discussed  learnedly;  a 
demonstrator  stood  below,  and  with  a  long  staff  pointed  to 
the  organs ;  the  dissection  itself  was  performed  by  a  barber. 

No  wonder  Vesalius  complained  that  the  student  learned 
less  in  an  anatomical  theater  than  a  butcher  might  learn  in 
his  shop.  He  said  his  teacher  Guinterius  never  used  his 
knife  for  any  other  purpose  than  to  cut  his  steak.  Warm 
blood  coursed  thru  the  veins  of  Vesalius;  during  a  demonstra- 
tion, iritated  at  the  awkwardness  of  the  barbers,  he  thrust 
them  aside  and  performed  the  dissection  himself.  '  By  Her- 
cules ! '  exclaimed  Guinterius,  and  looked  with  admiration  at 
his  talented  and  impetuous  pupil. 

All  this  was  in  Paris,  and  Vesalius  longed  to  be  in  the 
land  where  anatomy  was  cultivated  with  more  zeal  than  else- 
where —  Italy,  that  immortal  country  so  often  destroyed  by 
the  rapacity  of  ecclesiastics  and  diplomatists,  but  ever  re- 
viving afresh  with  new  beauty. 

In  1537  Vesalius  saluted  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic.  Be- 
tween Venice  and  the  Vatican  there  existed  an  antagonism  of 
long-standing.  When  the  Pope  said  Yes,  the  Venetian  sena- 
tors said  No.  In  the  republic  of  Venice  no  churchman  was 
permitted  to  hold  a  civil  post,  and  thruout  the  hall  of  the 
great  council  often  rang  the  sentry's  warning-cry,  Fuori  i 
Papalisti. 

But  Vesalius  never  bothered  his  head  about  such  matters; 
osteology  and  myology,  and  not  politics  and  theology,  were 
his  concern.  The  Paduans,  who  were  Venetians  at  that  time, 
soon  found  room  for  Vesalius.  They  created  the  chair  of 
anatomy  for  him,  and  thus  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  Andreas 
Vesalius  of  Brussels  became  a  professor  at  the  University  of 
Padua. 

His  enthusiasm  in  anatomy  was  infectious.  When  Vesalius 
lectured  no  one  thought  that  anatomy  was  as  dry  as  dust. 
When  the  young  professor  cut  a  layer  to  expose  a  muscle  or  a 
nerve,  five  hundred  auditors  —  students  and  teachers,  officials 


86  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

and  clerics  —  leaned  forward  with  attention.  No  doubt  the 
circumstance  that  whenever  possible  Vesalius  adopted  the 
novel  procedure  of  dissecting  the  human  cadaver  instead  of  a 
pig  or  dog,  served  to  add  to  the  interest  and  curiosity  of  the 
spectators.  The  fame  of  Vesalius  spread;  other  cities  asked 
him  to  come  and  reveal  to  them  the  wonders  of  the  human 
body. 

He  made  so  many  discoveries  that  it  is  difficult  to  name 
them  all.  His  researches  on  the  vascular  system  were  of  ex- 
treme importance;  he  determined  the  position,  form,  and  in- 
ternal structure  of  the  heart,  and  investigated  the  function  of 
its  fibers  and  valves.  Among  his  other  descriptions  and  dis- 
coveries may  be  mentioned  a  fuller  account  of  the  anatomy  of 
the  brain  than  had  yet  appeared;  the  first  satisfactory  de- 
scription of  the  medical  student's  terror,  the  sphenoid  bone,  at 
the  root  of  whose  pterygoid  process  is  a  small  aperture  still 
called  foramen  Vesalii;  the  discovery  of  the  canal  which 
passes  in  the  fetus  between  the  umbilical  vein  and  the  vena 
cava.  He  showed  that  the  sternum  consists  of  three  parts, 
and  the  sacrum  of  five  or  six.  He  was  the  first  who  de- 
scribed the  omentum  and  its  connection  with  the  stomach, 
spleen  and  colon;  the  internal  pterygoid  muscle,  the  ductus 
venosus,  the  course  of  the  vena  azygos  and  subclavian  vein, 
the  absence  of  the  '  rete  mirabile '  in  the  brain,  the  five  cere- 
bral ventricles,  and  the  non-glandular  character  of  the  car- 
uncles. He  likewise  described  accurately  the  mediastinium 
and  pleura,  the  tensor  tympani  muscle,  the  labyrinth,  the  vesti- 
bule of  the  ear  and  the  long  process  of  the  malleus,  the  fornix 
and  septum,  and  he  was  the  first  whose  views  on  the  pylorus 
have  been  found  correct. 

Many  who  attended  his  demonstration  marveled  at  the 
audacity  of  Vesalius;  he  spoke  of  the  mistakes  of  Galen. 
Hardly  more  than  a  boy  in  years,  he  was  not  willing  to  abide 
by  the  dicta  of  the  Pope  of  Anatomy  —  isn't  it  glorious  to  be 
young?  Galen  believed  there  was  no  marrow  in  the  bones 
of  the  hand;  he  believed  that  during  parturition  there  is  a 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST  87 

separation  of  the  bones  of  the  symphysis ;  he  believed  that  the 
inferior  maxilla  consists  of  two  pieces ;  he  believed  the  ascend- 
ing vena  cava  arose  from  the  liver;  Vesalius  proved  that  in 
each  instance  Galen  was  incorrect.  Vesalius  showed  that 
Galen  was  wrong  when  he  assumed  the  existence  of  a  general 
muscle  of  the  skin,  an  imputrescible  bone  of  the  heart,  the  os 
intermaxillare  in  adults,  a  decided  curvature  to  the  bones  of 
the  thigh  and  the  upper  arm. 

At  twenty-five  Vesalius  decided  upon  a  vast  undertaking: 
he  began  to  write  a  book  on  anatomy  which  he  was  confident 
would  revolutionize  the  entire  science  and  supplant  every 
other  text-book  in  existence.  It  was  to  consist  of  seven  parts : 
the  first  was  to  deal  with  bones  and  cartilages,  the  second  with 
ligaments  and  muscles,  the  third  with  veins  and  arteries,  the 
fourth  with  nerves,  the  fifth  with  organs  of  nutrition  and  gen- 
eration, the  sixth  with  heart  and  lungs,  the  seventh  with  the 
brain  and  organs  of  sense. 

Vesalius  could  attend  to  the  text  himself,  and  it  seems  that 
he  even  drew  some  of  the  illustrations,  but  still  an  artist  was 
needed  to  make  the  finest  figures  that  ever  adorned  a  medical 
work.  Vesalius  had  his  troubles,  and  he  often  complained 
that  the  artists  were  much  more  interested  in  painting  Venus 
than  in  drawing  his  dissected  carcasses.  When  we  remember 
that  preservative  fluids  were  not  used  in  those  days  it  is  not 
astonishing  that  the  Titians  and  van  Calcars  and  Coriolanos 
found  less  pleasure  in  foul-smelling  viscera  than  in  the  lively 
limbs  of  a  living  signorina.  Vesalius  was  certainly  exacting; 
at  times  the  artist  grew  tired  —  and  then  curses  were  handed 
back  and  forth.  More  than  once  the  distracted  Vesalius  en- 
vied the  peaceful  corpse  that  was  safe  from  the  antics  of  the 
artistic  temperament.  But  Vesalius  generously  scattered 
money  —  a  mystic  commodity  which  inspires  even  such  im- 
practical men  as  artists  —  and  the  work  advanced. 

Such  illustrations  as  Vesalius  finally  received  must  have 
compensated  him  for  his  travail.  Such  fine  skulls  and  fasci- 
nating skeletons,  such  perfect  viscera  and  beautiful  muscles, — 


88  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

strictly  correct  from  both  the  anatomical  and  artistic  view- 
points —  were  revelations.  It  is  true  that  the  unique  Giacomo 
Berengario  of  Carpi  —  the  specialist  in  syphilis  who  amassed 
a  fortune  in  Rome  by  treating  rich  priests  for  the  French 
evil  —  had  also  done  considerable  work  in  the  line  of  art- 
anatomy,  but  the  illustrations  of  Vesalius  were  much  superior. 

During  the  summer  of  1542  a  merchant  on  his  way  to  Basel 
carried  in  his  train  bulky  blocks  of  wood  —  but  they  were 
worth  their  weight  in  platinum.  On  these  blocks  was  built 
the  science  of  modern  anatomy  —  they  were  the  blocks  of 
Vesalius'  book.  Vesalius  had  uneasy  nights;  he  had  a  pre- 
sentiment that  the  trader  Danoni  would  not  go  straight  to  the 
printer  Oporinus,  but  would  get  drunk  on  the  way  and  lose 
his  precious  blocks;  or  he  would  be  attacked  by  rival  anato- 
mists and  the  blocks  would  be  stolen.  But  Danoni  attended 
to  his  business  and  brought  the  blocks  into  the  shop  of  Joannes 
Oporinus,  the  scholarly  printer  of  Basel.  Printing  was  a  new 
art  in  those  days,  and  a  printer  was  a  man  of  mark.  Vesalius 
wrote  to  Oporinus  begging  him  to  take  extreme  care  with  his 
work;  as  Oporinus  already  possessed  a  European  reputation 
for  fidelity,  he  must  have  considered  Vesalius'  precaution  un- 
necessary, but  probably  excused  it  on  the  ground  of  vanity  of 
an  author.  Vesalius  was  nervous  —  he  was  sure  that  the 
shop  of  Oporinus  would  burn  down  —  and  he  came  to  Basel 
himself  to  see  that  everything  was  all  right. 

In  1543  Vesalius'  volume  —  magnificent  in  appearance, 
monumental  in  contents  —  came  from  the  press.  With  the 
publication  of  De  Humani  Corporis  Fabrica  the  text-books  of 
Galen  and  Mondino  and  Guy  de  Chauliac  became  antiquated  — 
still  interesting  for  the  historical  student,  but  unimportant 
for  the  scientific  worker.  Vesalius  was  twenty-eight  —  in  three 
years  he  accomplished  what  he  had  set  out  to  do.  Vesalius 
lived  in  the  Golden  Age  of  Anatomy;  the  greatest  anatomists 
that  ever  held  a  scalpel  were  his  contemporaries :  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Cesalpinus,  Servetus,  Fallopius,  Eustachius,  Ingras- 
sias,  Realdus  Columbus.  But  the  crowning  masterpiece  of 


VESALIUS 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST  89 

that  brilliant  period  is  Andreas  Vesalius'  De  Humani  Corporis 
Fabrica  Libri  Septem.  It  conferred  on  its  author  this  title: 
Father  of  Modern  Anatomy. 

Among  the  lamentable  facts  in  the  posthumous  history  of 
certain  eminent  men  is  the  circumstance  that  tho  during  life 
they  sailed  in  the  advance  current  of  new  ideas,  no  sooner 
are  they  dead  than  their  followers  convert  them  into  a  dam  to 
beat  back  the  overflowing  river  of  progress.  Thus  it  is  that 
he  who  wished  no  limit  to  be  placed  on  freedom,  himself  un- 
wittingly becomes  the  clog  by  which  men  cry,  '  Halt ! '  Dis- 
ciples are  a  nuisance ;  they  forget  we  must  march  on  —  be- 
yond their  masters.  If  Heine  is  correct  in  assuming  that 
heaven  is  ruled  by  an  Aristophanes,  surely  nothing  can  move 
him  more  to  mirth  than  to  reflect  that  a  mortal  who  is  hunted 
by  his  contemporaries  as  a  heretic,  is  considered  by  his  pos- 
terity respectable  enough  to  blow  froth  from  the  cream-puffs 
of  platitude. 

It  was  a  wise  old  man  who  wrote  the  following  lines,  but 
unfortunately  such  an  injunction  is  always  disobeyed: 

I  call  to  the  world  to  distrust  the  accounts  of  my  friends,  but  listen  to 
my  enemies,  as  I  myself  do; 

I  charge  you,  forever  reject  those  who  would  expound  me,  for  I  cannot 
expound  myself; 

I  charge  that  there  be  no  theory  or  school  founded  out  of  me; 

I  charge  you  to  leave  all  free,  as  I  have  left  all  free. 

How  vast  and  wonderful  was  the  mind  of  Aristotle,  so 
limitless  and  immortal ;  but  as  soon  as  his  teachings  were  en- 
throned as  the  ultimate  authority  from  which  there  could  be 
no  appeal,  the  great  Stagirite  became  a  wound  on  the  breast 
of  science  which  needed  excision. 

Galen  had  done  mighty  work  for  science,  but  his  influence 
became  positively  harmful  as  soon  as  men  exchanged  their 
senses  for  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  physician  of  Pergamus.  Galen 
had  corrected  the  errors  of  his  eminent  predecessors  — 
amidst  insult  and  abuse  —  but  in  due  time  he  himself  was 
turned  into  a  veritable  oracle,  a  god  who  disputed  must  not  be, 


90  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

and  when  after  many  centuries,  Vesalius  in  his  turn,  with  all 
reverence  pointed  out  the  shortcomings  of  the  Galenian  sys- 
tem, he  made  bitter  enemies  who  struck  him  with  stinging 
words. 

During  the  sixteenth  century  it  was  sacrilege  to  dispute  a 
verdict  that  had  come  out  of  Greece  or  Rome.  So  worshipful 
of  antiquity  was  the  Renaissance  that  when  Rondelet  and  Pel- 
licier,  wandering  thru  the  marshes  of  the  Camargue,  came 
across  the  pink  flowers  of  the  water-germander  which  cor- 
responded to  the  Scordium  of  the  ancients,  all  Europe  ap- 
plauded the  botanists  who  found  a  plant  that  Dioscorides  and 
Pliny  had  known.  And  when  the  Garum  was  re-discovered, 
—  that  classic  sauce  whose  virtues  Horace  had  sung  from  his 
Sabine  farm  —  a  flood  of  praisef ul  poetry  followed. 

The  men  of  the  Middle  Ages  could  never  imbibe  the  spirit  of 
Greek  science;  they  could  repeat  only  the  dry  letters.  They 
never  knew  Greek  medicine  as  it  really  was :  they  were  ac- 
quainted only  with  its  caricature.  The  men  of  the  Renais- 
sance were  wiser,  and  throwing  away  translations  and  com- 
mentaries, they  studied  Hippocrates  and  Galen  and  Celsus  in 
the  original.  This  love  of  the  imperishable  classics  was 
fruitful  in  results  —  but  evil  w?.s  mixed  with  the  good. 
Greek  antiquity  was  a  dream  of  light;  medievalism  was  a 
nightmare.  Nothing  better  could  be  read  than  the  classic 
philosophers,  and  nothing  worse  than  monkish  psalters.  But 
when  the  Greekophiles  uttered  the  commandment,  '  Beyond 
Galen  thou  shalt  not  go,'  —  then  came  the  harm. 

When  the  medieval  grammarians  argued  technical  phases 
of  their  science,  instead  of  using  elegant  language,  they  cursed, 
'  May  God  confound  thee  for  thy  theory  of  irregular  verbs/ 
and  now  Jacobus  Sylvius  denounced  Vesalius  as  an  impious 
madman  whose  breath  poisoned  Europe. 

The  life  of  Vesalius  was  a  struggle  against  the  hypnotic  ef- 
fects of  Galen's  authority.  If  Galen  had  said  that  a  kidney 
is  larger  than  the  liver,  men  would  have  believed  it.  For  ex- 
ample, Galen  had  written  that  our  thigh-bones  are  curved. 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST  91 

Now,  when  even  a  cursory  examination  revealed  the  fact  that 
our  thigh-bones  are  straight,  Sylvius  still  asserted  that  they 
were  curved  in  a  state  of  nature,  and  that  their  straightness 
was  due  to  the  narrow  trousers  which  men  wore.  Galen  had 
declared  that  man  (irrespective  of  age)  possessed  an  inter- 
maxillary bone.  Vesalius  could  not  find  it,  and  he  said  so, — 
he  who  could  tell  every  bone  in  the  human  body  blindfolded. 
But  the  Galenists  refused  to  be  convinced.  A  human  skele- 
ton was  brought  to  Sylvius.  '  Where  is  this  intermaxillary 
bone  ? '  he  was  asked.  The  faithful  Galenist  answered  an- 
grily, '  Man  had  this  bone  when  Galen  lived.  If  he  has  it 
no  longer,  it  is  because  sensuality  and  luxury  have  deprived 
him  of  it.'  Galen  also  said  there  is  a  connection  between  the 
two  ventricles,  and  thereafter  every  anatomist  who  examined 
the  heart  saw  the  hole.  Then  Andreas  Vesalius  looked,  and 
said,  '  I  don't  see  it.'  And  he  didn't  —  it  isn't  there. 

Vesalius  deserves  endless  credit  for  his  criticisms.  To  sup- 
plant an  authority  is  admirable.  In  science  there  should  be 
guides,  not  despots;  teachers,  not  tyrants.  The  great  thing 
is,  to  leave  all  free!  Let  priests  have  their  popes  and  bulls 
and  dogmas,  but  give  us  the  Open  Road! 

Since  Vesalius  did  such  glorious  work  in  the  days  of  his 
youth,  it  may  be  wondered  what  he  accomplished  during  ma- 
turer  years.  The  answer  is:  Nothing.  His  numerous  ene- 
mies did  not  silence  him,  the  Inquisition  did  not  smite  him  in 
his  prime,  but  the  siren  of  aristocracy  seduced  him  from 
science.  He  became  the  court-physician  of  Spain,  and  instead 
of  brushing  aside  harmful  traditions  and  opening  up  scientific 
vistas,  he  labored  faithfully  on  the  gouty  toe  of  Charles  V. 
He  attended  pompous  dinners,  and  grew  polite  in  manners  and 
learned  in  etiquette.  He  was  taught  how  low  to  bow  to  a 
thieving  bishop,  and  how  far  to  bend  his  knees  to  a  luetic 
marquis.  He  took  his  place  among  the  king's  dwarfs  and 
his  jesters.  Yet  Vesalius  seemed  satisfied.  He  took  unto 
himself  a  wife,  made  money,  and  exchanged  the  intellectual 
life  for  the  easeful  one.  So  the  years  passed. 


92  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Spain  was  in  consternation;  dismay  was  written  on  the  im- 
passive Hapsburg  face ;  alarm  hung  over  the  peninsula  —  as 
if  the  commons  of  Castile  were  rising  again  in  insurrection 
under  the  leadership  of  young  Juan  de  Padilla  and  his  gal- 
lant wife.  But  it  was  no  second  guerra  de  las  communidades 
that  now  frightened  Toledo  and  spread  confusion  thruout 
Tordesillas;  it  was  a  calamity  of  a  different  sort  that  threat- 
ened the  stability  of  Hispania.  The  licentious  Don  Carlos 
had  been  chasing  a  girl,  the  girl  ran  away,  Don  Carlos  fol- 
lowed, Don  Carlos  tripped,  Don  Carlos  tumbled  down  the 
steps,  Don  Carlos  broke  his  head.  Don  Carlos  was  not  fair 
to  look  upon :  he  was  a  little  fellow,  with  a  lame  leg,  a  crooked 
shoulder  and  a  twisted  brain,  but  he  was  the  son  of  King 
Philip,  and  heir-apparent  to  the  largest  empire  on  the  globe. 
If  he  should  die,  who  would  rule  mankind?  Ten  days  went 
by  and  Don  Carlos  was  not  yet  out  of  danger;  he  breathed 
heavily,  and  developed  high  fever  and  erysipelas.  The  situa- 
tion was  critical;  something  extraordinary  had  to  be  done; 
at  least  that's  what  the  Spanish  physicians  and  prelates  whis- 
pered together.  From  the  churches  of  Seville  and  Alcala  and 
Madrid  arose  prayers  for  the  recovery  of  the  prince.  The 
miraculous  image  of  the  virgin  of  Atocha,  and  the  bones  of 
St  Justus  and  St  Pastor  were  placed  upon  his  pillow.  Philip 
knelt  within  the  Jeronymite  monastery,  and  promised  God 
that  if  Don  Carlos  .survived,  he  would  heap  gold  upon  every 
shrine  in  Spain.  The  Duke  of  Alva,  that  terrible  and  merci- 
less man  who  crushed  out  the  liberties  of  the  Netherlands,  re- 
mained all  night  at  the  foot  of  his  bed.  But  a  Nether- 
lander also  was  in  the  room  —  Andreas  Vesalius  bent  over  the 
nasty  abortion  to  see  what  science  could  accomplish.  Even 
Miguel  de  Cerventes,  in  his  most  mocking  moment,  never  im- 
agined so  preposterous  a  scene! 

Vesalius  received  a  book.  It  was  written  by  a  former  pupil 
of  his  —  Fallopius.  In  a  leisure  moment  Vesalius  com- 
menced to  glance  thru  the  volume.  A  tinge  of  jealousy  crept 
thru  his  veins.  The  Father  of  Anatomy  read  of  anatomical 


VESALIUS,  THE  ANATOMIST  93 

discoveries  of  which  he  knew  nothing.  While  he  had  been 
dawdling  away  his  days  in  the  performance  of  petty  func- 
tions, science  had  been  advancing.  Vesalius  grew  sad.  He 
felt  himself  a  Lost  Leader.  Old  memories  awoke.  He  re- 
membered how,  long  ago,  he  had  taught  anatomy  to  eager 
students.  He  recalled  his  own  enthusiasm,  his  disputes,  his 
demonstrations,  his  discoveries.  .  .  .  Fallopius  even 
went  so  far  as  to  point  out  some  errors  that  Vesalius  had 
made;  Vesalius  was  enraged,  but  the  effect  was  wholesome. 
While  preparing  an  answer  to  Fallopius,  his  better  nature  re- 
asserted itself.  He  determined  to  quit  the  pathologic  court 
of  Spain,  and  once  again  devote  himself  to  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge. 

About  this  time,  after  an  obscure  illness,  a  nobleman  died, 
whereupon  Vesalius  decided  to  perform  an  autopsy,  to  de- 
termine, if  possible,  the  disease  which  carried  off  this  grandee. 
With  his  skilled  hand  he  opened  the  chest  .  .  .  but  then 
Vesalius  saw,  and  all  present  saw,  what  they  had  not  thought 
to  see  —  a  beating  heart.  The  breezes  carried  the  unpleasant 
news,  the  enemies  of  Vesalius  accused  him  of  impiety  and 
murder,  and  the  Inquisition  sentenced  the  great  anatomist  to 
death.  (According  to  a  less-known  story,  Vesalius  was 
thus  condemned  because  while  dissecting  the  mistress  of  a 
priest  he  discovered  unmistakable  evidence  that  Christ's 
bachelor  had  not  kept  his  vows  as  to  chastity.)  But  Philip 
II  interceded  for  his  Archiatrus,  and  as  the  merciless  monarch 
was  influential  with  the  merciless  institution,  the  punishment 
of  Vesalius  was  commuted  to  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land. 
There  is  a  story  that  Vesalius  undertook  this  journey  volun- 
tarily, to  get  rid  of  the  vigorous  tongue  of  his  wife.  In  this 
multiplicity  of  versions  it  is  difficult  to  reach  the  truth,  but  it 
is  generally  believed  —  and  there  is  contemporary  testimony 
to  support  it  —  that  it  was  to  escape  the  fires  of  the  Inquisition 
that  Vesalius  sailed  over  the  waters  to  Palestine. 

Not  Jerusalem  is  the  Holy  Land,  not  Sinai's  top,  nor  the 
Mount  of  Olives;  not  the  Sea  of  the  Plain,  or  the  Pool  of 


94  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Siloam,  and  neither  the  waters  of  Merom  nor  the  wilderness 
of  Judea  can  claim  the  sacred  name;  neither  the  valley  of 
Achor  nor  the  fountain  near  Jericho,  not  Jacob's  well  nor 
where  the  river  of  Jordan  rolls,  but  the  land  where  man  works 
for  the  welfare  of  man, —  this  is  Holy  Land. 

Gabriel  Fallopius  died  young,  and  the  Venetian  senate  in- 
vited Vesalius  to  again  fill  the  Paduan  professorship  thus  made 
vacant.  So  Vesalius  left  the  palm-trees  of  Cyprus  and  sailed 
to  the  Ionian  Sea.  The  winds  blew,  the  billows  rose  like 
mad,  an  infuriated  storm  broke  forth,  and  under  the  blue  Ital- 
ian sky,  on  the  beauteous  Isle  of  Zante,  whose  laurels  and  myr- 
tles have  been  sung  by  old  Homer  and  Virgil,  the  anatomist 
was  wrecked. 

A  wandering  goldsmith  entered  a  wretched  hut  and  was 
startled  to  see  a  corpse  on  the  floor  —  a  corpse  that  Andreas 
Vesalius  would  never  dissect.  The  winds  of  heaven  destroyed 
his  life,  but  could  not  wipe  out  the  remembrance  of  his  life- 
work.  He  perished  in  hunger  and  misery,  but  bequeathed  to 
posterity  an  immortal  name.  Whenever  we  think  of  the 
pathfinders  who  advanced  the  progress  of  science,  we  evoke 
a  picture  of  the  intrepid  Vesalius,  knife  in  hand,  battling 
against  the  tyranny  of  tradition. 


(1517-1590) 
PARE,  THE  SURGEON 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON 

Fine  old  Ambrose  Pare,  that  quaint  and  delicious  writer,  the  surgeon 
of  princes,  and  the  prince  of  surgeons; 

—  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

Nor  was  Pare  great  on  the  positive  side  of  progress  only;  he  was 
no  less  resolute  in  confutation  of  fabulous  lore.  If  he  believed  in  his 
puppy  dog  fat  —  and  how  could  he  resign  a  secret  remedy  which  had 
cost  him  so  many  prayers !  —  he  denounced,  with  an  audacity  which  in 
our  tepid  and  skeptical  times  we  can  scarcely  appreciate,  the  bogus  vir- 
tues of  mummy  and  unicorn.  As  great  personages  would  marvel  that 
he  had  not  administered  mummy  in  their  lacerations,  Pare  was  aroused 
to  indite  his  opinion  of  the  stuff;  and  the  King  must  have  been  annoyed 
to  read  farther  that  the  horn  of  the  unicorn  of  St  Denis,  for  which  he 
had  refused  100,000  crowns,  was  but  an  old  woman's  charm. 

—  THOMAS  CLIFFORD  ALLBUTT. 

THE  French  were  invading  Turin.  All  armies  are  alike, 
and  on  their  victorious  way  the  soldiers  of  Francis  I  demol- 
ished the  villas,  broke  the  wheels  of  the  mills,  threw  the 
nether  stones  in  the  thrifty  brook,  polluted  the  wells,  poisoned 
the  springs,  staved-in  the  wine-casks,  burnt  the  barns  with  the 
golden  grain,  and  killed  the  cattle  that  fed  on  the  fodder. 

At  the  Pass  of  Suze  the  battle  began  —  for  the  forts  and 
trenches  of  the  enemy  blocked  the  way.  The  French  gained 
steadily,  and  their  foes  retreated  to  the  castle  on  the  hill  — 
Chateau  de  Villane.  The  conquerors  followed  in  pursuit,  and 
the  hoofs  of  their  horses  made  impressions  on  the  wounded 
and  the  dying. 

And  from  the  dizzy  precipices  came  another  army  —  also 
greedy.  Thru  the  reddened  air  swept  the  huge  vultures,  and 
fastening  their  talons  in  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  they  gorged 
themselves  —  like  leeches  on  the  neck  of  a  full-blooded  peas- 
ant-woman. 

Night  descended  silently  —  like  the  vultures.  The  field 
was  strewn  with  horrors. 

97 


98  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Here  was  one  leg  all  alone,  still  dressed  in  a  torn  trouser. 
One  fellow  had  a  hole  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach  thru  which  the 
blood  oozed  like  water  from  a  leaking  pipe.  Here  was  a 
headless  trunk  with  a  smashed  chest,  and  as  something  scarlet 
gushed  from  it  in  spurts,  it  looked  like  a  staved-in  wine  case. 
Another  had  one  eye  torn  out,  and  the  remaining  one  beat  in  its 
socket  like  a  battering-ram.  Many  tongues  were  enormously 
swollen,  and  hung  out  of  the  owners'  mouths  as  if  they  were 
mad  dogs.  A  horse  cried  terribly,  tried  in  vain  to  rise,  and 
fell  dead,  its  hoofs  loudly  striking  the  ground.  An  officer's 
skull  had  disappeared  some  way,  and  the  sensitive  and  deli- 
cate brain  was  exposed  to  the  air. 

They  were  piled  in  heaps  —  like  logs  of  wood  in  front  of 
a  bin,  only  not  so  neatly  arranged.  And  some  of  them  moved 
like  children's  toys  —  stiffly,  and  without  life.  The  broken 
delirious  talk  and  the  impotent  cursing  were  heart-chilling. 
Blood-poisoning  was  setting-in.  A  young  fellow  began  to 
dream  of  home  —  where  waited  a  vacant  chair  and  an  empty 
heart.  It  is  true  that  a  man  loves  his  wife  when  he  lies 
wounded  on  a  bloody  battlefield.  She  seems  to  him  so  tender 
and  true.  In  heaps,  they  were  piled  in  dirty  crimson  heaps, 
and  every  part  of  the  heap  that  was  alive,  suffered. 

At  daybreak  the  French  again  fired  upon  the  castle.  With 
spikes,  stones  and  arquebuses  the  besieged  stoutly  defended 
their  last  stronghold.  But  one  side  must  lose:  a  breach  was 
made  in  the  wall,  and  the  French  won  the  day.  The  ensign 
and  captain  were  strangled  and  hanged  on  the  battlements. 
All  the  soldiers  taken  alive  were  literally  hacked  to  pieces. 

Out  of  all  that  garrison  only  one  was  left  in  the  land  of  the 
living.  This  was  a  little  maid  from  sunny  Italy,  '  a  very  fair 
young  girl  of  Piedmont  whom  a  great  seigneur  would  have.' 
Irresistible  indeed  is  female  beauty  if  even  among  the  corpses 
and  the  carnage  its  power  can  still  be  felt.  Thru  the  cen- 
turies the  sweet  face  of  this  girl  captive  looks  upon  us,  re- 
minding us  much  of  the  beautiful  Briseis  of  the  Iliad : 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  99 

Patroclus  now  th*  unwilling  Beauty  brought; 
She  in  soft  sorrows  and  in  pensive  thought, 
Past  silent,  as  the  heralds  held  her  hand, 
And  oft  look'd  back,  slow  moving  o'er  the  strand. 

Now  that  the  battle  was  over,  the  soldiers  put  away  their 
instruments  of  destruction,  and  the  surgeons  took  out  their 
lancets,  forceps,  pliers,  dilators,  incision-knives,  drainage- 
tubes,  amputating-saws  and  cataract-needles. 

With  the  French  was  a  young  surgeon  on  his  first  cam- 
paign. He  followed  the  usual  method  of  treatment  — 
he  cauterized  the  wounds  with  scalding  oil.  He  had  read 
carefully  John  de  Vigo's  chapter  on  oil  of  elders  mixed  with 
a  little  treacle.  But  either  he  was  too  enthusiastic  in  its  ap- 
plication, or  there  was  an  unexpectedly  large  number  of 
wounded,  for  the  boiling  oil  gave  out.  The  poor  frightened 
surgeon  could  do  nothing  better  than  tie  the  bleeding  arteries 
with  a  bandage  —  he  prepared  a  medicament.  He  passed  a 
most  uneasy  night,  fully  expecting  that  when  he  looked  at  his 
non-cauterized  patients  the  next  morning,  he  would  find  them 
dead  from  their  wounds,  reeking  with  gangrene,  vile  and  livid 
like  Lorenzo's  face  in  the  pot  of  basil.  He  rose  earlier  than 
usual,  and  vast  was  his  astonishment  on  finding  that  those 
whom  he  had  treated  with  the  scorching  oil  were  in  great  ag- 
ony, suffering  with  severe  inflammation  at  the  edges  of  the 
wounds,  while  those  to  whom  he  had  applied  the  digestive  of 
white  of  egg,  were  quite  comfortable,  and  had  neither  pain  nor 
swelling ! 

Ambrose  Pare  had  made  his  first  discovery.  '  See/  says 
he,  '  how  I  learned  to  treat  gunshot  wounds;  not  by  books/ 

When  Pare  returned  to  the  French  capital  after  his  first 
taste  of  war,  he  heard  that  a  certain  anatomist  —  then  at  the 
height  of  his  fame  —  desired  to  see  him.  It  was  the  dis- 
tinguished Sylvius,  and  he  invited  Pare  to  dinner,  and  listened 
to  his  original  views  on  the  treatment  of  gunshot  wounds. 
Sylvius  was  so  impressed,  that  he  gave  Pare  a  bit  of  advice 
which  sounds  very  modern  —  he  told  him  to  publish  a  book. 


100  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Encouragement  from  such  a  source  was  stimulating  indeed, 
and  when  Pare  was  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  a  volume  bear- 
ing the  following  title  appeared :  '  The  Manner  of  Treating 
Wounds  made  by  Arquebuses  and  other  Fire- Arms,  and  those 
Made  by  Arrows,  Darts  and  the  Like;  and  also  by  Burns 
Made  Especially  by  Gunpowder.  Composed  by  Ambrose 
Pare,  Master  Barber-Surgeon  in  Paris.'  A  small  8vo,  of  61 
pages,  but  what  an  era  it  ushered  in ! 

A  gorgeous  copy  of  a  later  edition,  printed  on  vellum  with 
patterns  of  gold,  was  presented  to  the  king's  mistress,  Diana 
of  Poitiers.  It  is  claimed  that  the  sumptuous  bindings  in 
which  this  un-Grecian  Diana  indulged  are  almost  without 
parallel.  Her  books  were  marked  with  her  favorite  symbols, 
the  lunar  crescent  and  the  bow!  Evidently  this  brazen 
Frenchwoman,  merely  because  of  the  accident  of  a  name, 
thought  herself  entitled  to  use  the  emblems  of  that  shy  god- 
dess whose  undraped  limbs  neither  god  nor  man  could  see. 
These  were  the  designs,  however,  that  she  put  in  Fare's  book, 
and  she  also  interlaced  a  D  with  an  H,  the  H  standing  not  for 
Heaven  or  its  antonym,  but  for  her  royal  lover,  Henri. 

So  Ambrose  Pare  was  now  an  author,  but  as  he  had  ex- 
hausted neither  the  subject  nor  himself,  he  went  on  thinking. 

Ambrose  Pare  was  the  son  of  a  valet;  many  of  the  men 
whose  deeds  are  chronicled  by  the  historian  of  the  medical 
sciences,  sprang  from  a  lowly  origin. 

It  is  fortunate  that  Pare  was  not  a  gentleman,  for  at  that 
time  surgery  was  regarded  as  unfit  for  an  homme  de  bon 
ton.  Besides,  in  those  days,  a  man  who  underwent  an  aca- 
demic education  was  apt  to  be  mentally  ruined  for  the  rest 
of  his  life  —  unless  he  became  a  rebel. 

The  old  Greeks  were  too  wise  to  separate  medicine  and 
surgery,  but  the  medievalists  could  be  counted  upon  to  em- 
brace all  possible  and  impossible  absurdities.  Of  course  the 
circumstance  that  the  Church  '  forbade  the  shedding  of 
blood,'  ecclesia  abhorret  a  sanguine, —  tho  its  own  hands  were 
crimson  —  had  much  to  do  with  the  degradation  of  surgery, 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  101 

but  the  scholastic  conceits  of  the  pedants  and  faculties  reached 
such  a  pass  that  they  refused  to  hold  a  knife,  or  perform  a 
venesection  themselves,  or  make  a  physical  examination;  the 
hand  was  expelled  from  the  realm  of  science,  and  surgery 
was  generally  relegated  to  barbers. 

Pare  received  no  college  training;  the  bloody  battlefield 
was  his  university.  He  could  not  read  Galen  in  the  original, 
but  he  discussed  a  variety  of  injuries  that  were  not  contained 
in  Galen,  for  they  were  caused  by  recently-invented  firearms. 
The  barber's  boy,  who  from  cock-crow  to  evening  had  cut 
hair  and  shaved  beards  and  combed  wigs,  confesses  that  he 
was  not  familiar  with  Greek  or  Latin  —  but  he  understood 
the  language  of  wounds. 

Pare  served  at  the  wars  over  thirty  years,  and  tho  he  was 
often  in  danger  of  death,  and  was  even  taken  prisoner,  he 
was  never  wounded.  It  is  true  that  he  was  once  poisoned, 
that  his  leg  was  once  broken,  and  that  he  was  bitten  by  a 
viper  in  an  apothecary's  shop,  but  these  accidents  occurred 
during  the  dangerous  days  of  peace. 

Probably  because  Pare  was  country-bred,  he  enjoyed  ex- 
cellent health  all  his  long  life.  His  flesh  was  heir  to  few 
ills.  Unlike  Boerhaave,  Harvey,  the  Hunters,  Sydenham, 
Linnaeus,  Berzelius,  and  so  many  other  eminent  medical  men, 
he  did  not  suffer  from  the  respectable  disease  yclept  gout, 
and  had  it  not  been  for  the  wicked  little  nerves  of  the  teeth 
that  often  throbbed  like  sleepless  imps,  Pare  would  have  been 
fortunate  indeed.  But  Shakespeare's  Leonatio  said  truly  to 
Antonio, 

For  there  was  never  yet  philosopher 

That  could  endure  the  tooth-ache  patiently. 

The  love  which  the  French  army  had  for  Ambrose  Pare 
was  of  unusual  and  extraordinary  intensity,  never  before  or 
since  accorded  to  a  non-combatant,  and  finding  a  parallel  only 
in  the  affection  which  some  centuries  later  it  bore  for  the 
Man  of  Destiny. 

Pare's  mere  presence  was  enough  to  re-animate  a  disheart- 


102 

ened  garrison,  and  at  the  Siege  of  Metz,  when  the  French 
troops  were  sorely  pressed  and  on  the  verge  of  surrender, 
their  beloved  surgeon,  tho  far  distant,  was  sent  for.  No 
sooner  did  he  appear  on  the  ramparts  than  a  mighty  shout 
arose.  '  We  shall  not  die,'  they  cried,  '  even  tho  wounded. 
Pare  is  among  us.'  They  carried  him  off  in  triumph,  they 
continued  the  defense,  and  achieved  a  victory.  To  inspire 
such  feelings  Pare  must  have  been  not  only  skilful,  but  very 
kind  to  the  soldiers;  a  sort  of  Walt  Whitman: 

Many  a  soldier's  loving  arms  around  this  neck  have  cross'd  and  rested, 
Many  a  soldier's  kiss  dwells  on  these  bearded  lips. 

In  his  vigorous  old  age,  Pare  wrote  of  his  experiences  at 
the  wars:  Journeys  in  Diverse  Places.  In  them  he  repeats 
his  motto,  time  and  time  again :  '  I  dressed  him  and  God  cured 
him.'  The  style  is  most  admirable  for  clearness  and  sim- 
plicity, and  its  curious  mixture  of  vanity  and  modesty  makes 
it  a  rival  of  Pepys,  This  is  all  the  more  remarkable,  because 
as  a  rule  when  physicians  tackle  literature,  they  make  as  poor 
a  showing  as  poets  would  make  if  they  attempted  to  perform 
an  ovariotomy. 

'  I  was  on  a  rampart,'  wrote  Pare,  '  watching  the  enemy 
pitch  their  camp,  and  seeing  the  crowd  of  idlers  round  the 
stream,  I  asked  M.  du  Pont,  commissary  of  the  artillery, 
to  send  one  cannon-shot  among  this  canaille:  he  gave  me  a 
flat  refusal,  saying  that  all  this  sort  of  people  was  not  worth 
to  have  powder  wasted  on  them.  Again  I  begged  him  to 
level  the  cannon,  telling  him,  the  more  dead,  the  fewer  ene- 
mies, which  he  did  for  my  sake:  and  the  shot  killed  fifteen 
or  sixteen,  and  wounded  many.' 

To  demand  the  death  of  unsuspecting  idlers  enjoying  them- 
selves on  the  bank  of  a  stream  —  is  not  very  creditable  to 
the  author  of  the  desire.  In  Fare's  palliation  it  must  be 
argued  that  he  lived  at  a  time  when  the  Christian  theology 
was  supreme,  and  much  was  heard  of  the  wrath  of  God,  but 
naught  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man.  Neither  from  the  proud- 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  103 

est  cathedral  nor  from  the  humblest  pulpit  was  the  grand 
word  Humanity  ever  uttered.  To  have  shown  mercy  to  an 
enemy  would  have  been  the  super-miracle  —  more  wondrous 
than  the  healing  of  the  ear  of  Malchus.  A  vivid  insight  into 
the  psychology  of  those  days  may  be  acquired  by  reading  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  works  in  all  literature  —  The  Me- 
moirs of  Benvenuto  Cellini,  Written  by  Himself. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  Supernatural  Spirits  were  a 
nuisance  —  tho  their  frightened  mortal  contemporaries  did 
not  dare  tell  them  so.  But  their  fleshless  arms  interfered 
with  all  things,  great  and  small.  The  sweetest  cream  they 
soured,  the  finest  babies  they  gave  the  fits;  they  withheld  the 
rain  when  it  was  needed,  and  they  darkened  earth  and  sky 
with  eclipses;  they  whispered  heresies  into  the  ears  of  the 
devoutest  priests,  they  stole  into  convents  at  night,  lifted  the 
blankets  from  the  chastest  beds,  and  made  indecent  proposals 
to  the  holy  nuns,  who  have  kindly  filled  volumes  of  sexual 
psychology  with  their  erotic  confessions.  Bolted  doors  were 
of  no  avail,  for  unlike  the  humped  camel,  they  could  pass 
thru  the  eye  of  a  needle.  They  were  omnipotent,  omnipres- 
ent, omniscient.  And  most  mortals  feared  them,  for  not 
everyone  could  be  a  Luther  and  lambaste  them  with  ink- 
bottles. 

Ambrose  Pare  was  a  superstitious  man:  he  believed  in 
astrology,  spiritism,  magic,  witchcraft  and  the  royal  touch; 
he  believed  that  devils  sent  diseases,  and  that  saints  cured 
them;  he  believed  that  at  the  command  of  General  Joshua 
the  celestial  orbs  stayed  and  changed  their  courses,  that  be- 
cause of  the  prayer  of  Elijah  it  ceased  to  rain  for  three  years 
and  six  months,  that  Jesus  was  born  of  a  virgin  without  the 
aid  of  a  male,  and  a  host  of  other  irrational  and  unscientific 
notions  which  were  once  accepted  by  the  s"hrewdest  of  man- 
kind, but  are  now  happily  relegated  to  the  unused  encephalic 
ganglia  of  the  intellectually  inferior. 

In  Fare's  day,  embryogenesis  was  little  studied,  and 
teratology  as  a  science  was  unknown.  Nevertheless  mon- 


104*  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

strosities,  single  and  double,  representing  various  degrees  of 
congenital  malformation,  were  known  to  exist,  and  an  ex- 
planation was  needed.  What  was  the  cause,  they  asked,  of 
the  birth  of  these  abnormal  beings  —  double-headed  like 
Janus,  one-eyed  like  Polyphemus,  with  webbed  toes  and  fin- 
gers, with  seven  nipples,  without  limbs,  with  both  sets  of 
genitals,  with  three  legs,  with  a  cleft  face,  with  the  features 
of  a  pig  or  dog,  with  osseous  junctions  joining  two  monsters 
together?  According  to  some,  these  monsters  were  the  off- 
springs of  women  and  the  devil;  according  to  others,  they 
were  the  result  of  sodomy.  Ambrose  Pare  did  not  favor 
the  first  view,  and  argues  thus  (I  quote  from  the  old  Eng- 
lish translation  of  1634)  :  '  It  is  much  less  credible  that  Di veils 
can  copulate  with  women,  for  they  are  of  an  absolute  spirit- 
ous  nature,  but  blood  and  flesh  are  necessary  for  the  genera- 
tion of  man.  What  naturall  reason  can  allow  that  the  in- 
corporeall  Divells  can  love  corporeall  women?  And  how  can 
we  thinke  that  they  can  generate,  who  want  the  instruments 
of  generation?  How  can  they  who  neither  eate  nor  drinke 
be  said  to  swell  with  seed  ? '  Pare,  however,  accepted  the 
second  explanation.  *  Therefore,'  wrote  he,  '  in  times  past 
there  have  been  some  who  nothing  fearing  the  Deity,  neither 
Law  nor  themselves,  that  is  their  soule,  have  so  abjected  and 
prostrated  themselves,  that  they  have  thought  themselves 
nothing  different  from  beasts:  wherefore  Atheists,  Sodomites, 
Outlawes,  forgetfull  of  their  own  excellency  and  divinity, 
and  transformed  by  filthy  lust,  have  not  doubted  to  have  filthy 
and  abhominable  copulation  with  beasts.  This  so  great,  so 
horrid  a  crime,  for  whose  expiation  all  the  fires  in  the  world 
are  not  sufficient,  though  they,  too  maliciously  crafty,  have 
concealed,  and  the  conscious  beasts  could  not  utter,  yet  the 
generated  mis-shapen  issue  hath  abundantly  spoken  and  de- 
clared, by  the  unspeakable  power  of  God,  the  revenger 
and  punisher  of  such  impious  and  horrible  actions.  For 
of  this  various  and  promiscuous  confusion  of  seedes 
of  different  kinde,  monsters  have  been  generated  and 


PARE 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  105 

borne,  who  have  beene  partly  men  and  partly  beasts.' 
The  men  of  Fare's  day  were  no  wiser  in  regard  to  the 
plague.  Listen  again  to  Pare :  '  The  plague  is  a  disease  com- 
ing of  the  wrath  of  God,  furious,  sudden,  swift,  monstrous, 
dreadful,  contagious,  terrible,  called  by  Galen  a  wild  beast, 
savage  and  most  cruel;  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  life  of  men 
and  of  diverse  sorts  of  beasts,  plants  and  trees.  ...  It 
is  a  thing  established  among  true  Christians,  to  whom  the 
Eternal  has  revealed  the  secrets  of  his  wisdom,  that  the 
plague  and  other  diseases  common  among  men,  comes  from 
the  hand  of  God,  as  the  prophet  teaches  us:  Shall  there  be 
evil  in  the  city  and  the  Lord  had  not  done  it?  ...  So 
let  us  be  agreed  that  the  plague,  and  other  dangerous  maladies 
are  evidence  of  the  wrath  of  God  against  the  sins,  idolatries, 
and  superstitions,  which  reign  over  the  earth:  as  even  a  pro- 
fane author  is  compelled  to  confess  that  there  is  something 
divine  in  diseases.'  The  reader  may  be  interested  to  know 
that  the  '  profane  author '  in  this  case  is  no  other  than  Hip- 
pocrates. 

Pare  himself  witnessed  a  plague  and  described  its  rav- 
ages :  '  And  what  is  worse,  in  these  field-huts  there  was  that 
sight  of  the  father  and  the  mother  grievously  ill,  not  able 
to  help  their  child,  and  they  saw  it  smothered  and  bitten  by 
wasps,  and  the  mother  to  save  it  got  up  and  then  fell  dead 
between  her  child  and  her  husband.  Again,  he  who  has  vas- 
sals, serfs  or  servants,  is  deserted  by  them:  they  turn  their 
backs,  and  none  dare  go  to  him:  even  the  father  abandons 
his  child,  and  the  child  his  father:  the  husband  his  wife,  and 
the  wife  her  husband:  the  brother  his  sister,  and  the  sister 
her  brother :  and  those  whom  you  think  your  nearest  and  truest 
friends  abandon  you  now  in  the  horror  and  peril  of  this 
disease.  How  many  poor  women,  great  with  child,  have 
been  deserted  and  left  to  travail  all  alone,  on  mere  suspicion, 
tho  they  had  no  trace  of  the  plague  about  them  —  for  every 
sort  of  illness,  in  time  of  plague  is  feared  —  and  so  the  mother 
and  the  child  have  died  together.  I  found  on  the  breasts  of 


106  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

a  woman  dead  of  the  plague,  her  baby  still  sucking  the  deadly 
poison  that  was  soon  to  kill  it  like  its  own  mother.  Others, 
when  the  plague  fell  on  them,  were  so  afraid  to  die  that  they 
applied  red-hot  irons  to  the  swelling,  burning  their  own  flesh, 
if  by  any  means  they  might  escape:  others,  in  hope  of  cure, 
tore  it  out  with  pincers.  Some  in  the  heat  and  frenzy  of  the 
disease  have  thrown  themselves  into  the  fire,  others  into  wells, 
others  into  rivers:  men  have  hurled  themselves  out  of  win- 
dows, or  have  dashed  their  heads  against  the  wall,  till  their 
brains  came  out,  as  I  have  seen:  others  have  put  an  end  to 
themselves  with  a  dagger  or  a  knife.' 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  Ambrose  Pare  thought  the  God  who 
sent  the  plague  was  the  Lord  of  Love. 

No  more  can  dreadful  words  like  the  above  be  written. 
No  more  can  a  devastating  epidemic  strike  terror  to  the  heart 
of  a  civilized  nation,  and  wipe  out  a  million  inhabitants  at 
a  blow.  In  1897,  the  same  year  that  Stephen  Paget  published 
his  Life  of  Ambrose  Pare,  the  preventive  treatment  of  the 
bubonic  plague  was  discovered!  No  more  do  we  quake  and 
shudder  in  superstitious  awe.  Never  again  will  a  plague  stalk 
like  a  ravishing  fiend  thru  Europe  or  America.  We  have 
given  the  plague  its  conge,  and  it  can  never  return. 

Ah,  how  much  the  world  owes  to  medical  science,  and  how 
little  it  realizes  its  obligations! 

Pare  was  glad  to  get  home  from  the  wars.  Thirty  years 
of  battle  were  quite  enough,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  for  the  mili- 
tary surgeon  to  be  again  at  Paris  —  sitting  at  ease  before  his 
own  fireside,  watching  his  little  daughter  at  play,  enjoying 
the  society  of  his  neglected  wife.  He  could  close  his  eyes 
lazily,  and  was  in  no  danger  of  being  startled  by  the  bursting 
of  the  enemy's  shell,  or  the  groaning  of  an  injured  soldier. 
He  could  work  all  day  on  his  books,  and  at  night  when  his 
wife  made  the  bed,  he  saw  white  sheets  and  pillows  unstained 
with  blood.  This  was  an  unusual  luxury  for  Ambrose,  and 
he  slept  well. 

Altho  Pare  had  been  a  barber-surgeon,  and  still  knew  no 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  107 

Latin  —  the  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  a  gentleman's  education 
of  those  days  —  he  gradually  gained  recognition  as  the  fore- 
most surgeon  of  his  age.  He  was  growing  very  distinguished, 
and  his  affairs  were  prosperous.  He  even  dabbled  in  real 
estate  successfully  Everyone,  from  royalty  to  the  populace, 
loved  him,  and  he  found  that  the  spreading  olive-branches  of 
Peace  offered  a  most  pleasing  shade.  Never  again  did  he 
wish  to  see  fields  bathed  in  blood.  He  had  arrived  at  the 
age  when  rest  is  sweet,  and  comfort  the  great  desideratum. 
He  liked  to  walk  camly  thru  the  beloved  streets  of  Paris, 
where  '  his  face  got  to  be  as  well  known  as  the  face  of  the 
king  himself,  and  much  more  welcome.' 

Ambrose  Pare  served  four  kings,  which  led  to  the  witty 
remark  that  the  rulers  of  France  transferred  him  to  their 
successors  as  a  legacy  of  the  crown.  One  of  the  four  was 
Henri  II.  This  monarch  married  a  woman  who  has  left  on 
the  pages  of  history  a  little  red  blot  that  not  all  the  bleaching 
power  of  Time  can  erase.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Lorenzo 
the  Magnificent,  the  niece  of  Pope  Clement  VII,  the  wife  of 
one  French  king,  the  mother  of  three,  the  mother-in-law  of 
the  loveliest  of  Scottish  queens  and  of  the  crudest  of  Spanish 
kings,  and  her  own  name  was  Catherine  de  Medici. 

While  her  husband  lived,  she  led  a  passive  life,  as  her  lord 
was  under  the  sway  of  his  mistress,  Diana  of  Poitiers,  but 
when  he  was  killed  by  Count  de  Montgomery  —  whether  ac- 
cidentally or  purposely  is  not  known  —  the  unchaste  Diana 
was  told  to  go,  the  son  of  Catherine  became  Frangois  II,  and 
as  he  died  at  seventeen,  having  reigned  seventeen  months, 
seventeen  days  and  seventeen  hours ;  another  son  of  Catherine 
became  Charles  IX,  while  she  herself  now  held  the  reins  of 
power  in  an  unrelenting  hand. 

She  knew  Pare  well,  and  as  she  was  a  good  Catholic  while 
he  was  a  Huguenot,  she  once  asked  him,  '  M.  Pare,  do  you 
believe  you  will  be  saved  in  the  next  world  ? ' 

He  answered :  '  Surely  madame ;  for  I  do  what  I  can  to 
be  a  good  man  in  this  world:  and  God  is  merciful,  giving  ear 


108 

well  to  all  languages,  and  alike  satisfied  whether  one  prays 
to  him  in  French  or  in  Latin.'  Evidently,  Pare  gave  God 
credit  for  being  an  accomplished  linguist. 

Even  in  times  of  peace  there  can  be  excitement,  and  one 
day  Ambrose  was  sent  for  —  and  told  to  hurry.  He  found 
that  his  patron  Admiral  Coligny,  after  leaving  the  Louvre 
and  engaged  in  reading  a  letter,  had  been  shot  from  a  win- 
dow,—  with  the  result  that  his  left  arm  was  wounded,  and 
two  fingers  on  his  right  hand  broken.  Pare  attended  to  the 
wound  and  cut  off  the  broken  fingers.  That  Coligny  was 
one  of  the  most  upright  men  of  a  dishonest  age,  all  French 
historians  agree.  But  Coligny  was  the  leader  of  the  Hugue- 
nots, and  therefore  every  Catholic  was  his  enemy.  At  two 
o'clock  King  Charles  IX,  and  the  Queen-Mother  Catherine 
de  Medici  came  to  visit  the  Admiral  —  and  Gaspard  de 
Coligny  saw  his  murderer.  Over  a  hundred  of  Coligny's 
friends  were  in  the  apartments, —  but  they  allowed  the  cause 
of  the  hugest  massacre  in  history  to  depart  unharmed. 

At  midnight  a  noise  was  heard  on  the  stairs.  Pare,  who 
had  remained  with  his  patient,  asked,  '  What  is  the  meaning 
of  this  riot  ?  ' 

A  few  moments  later  the  door  was  burst  open,  and  some 
servants  of  the  Duke  of  Guise  entered.  One  of  them,  named 
Behme,  asked,  '  Art  thou  not  the  Admiral  ?  ' 

*  Young  man,'  said  Coligny,  '  thou  comest  against  a 
wounded  and  an  aged  man.  Thou'lt  not  shorten  my  life  by 
much.' 

Behme  plunged  a  tremendous  boar-spear  in  his  stomach, 
and  then  struck  him  on  the  head.  '  If  it  were  but  a  man ! ' 
cried  Coligny  as  he  fell,  '  but  't  is  a  horse-boy.' 

From  the  court-yard  below  was  heard  the  impatient  voice  of 
the  Duke  of  Guise :  '  Behme !  hast  done  ? '  For  answer,  the 
lifeless  body  of  the  nation's  hero  was  thrown  from  the  win- 
dow. It  fell  at  the  feet  of  the  waiting  Duke,  who  kicked  the 
bleeding  corpse  in  the  face. 

It  had  begun  —  the  flood  of  blood  was  loose  —  the  greatest 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  109 

massacre  in  French  history  had  its  scarlet  baptism.  Thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  Huguenots  were  murdered,  the  streets 
of  Paris  were  overcrowded  with  corpses,  the  provinces  were 
likewise  full  of  bodies,  and  the  waters  of  the  Seine  were  red 
for  days  after.  Never  can  the  memory  of  this  butchery  be 
wiped  out,  never  can  the  Massacre  of  Saint  Bartholomew  be 
forgotten.  The  blood  that  was  shed  that  day  refuses  to  dry. 

After  Catherine  induced  her  son  to  consent  to  the  butchery, 
the  king  desired  to  destroy  every  prominent  Huguenot  in 
France,  with  the  single  exception  of  Ambrose  Pare.  He  com- 
manded Pare  to  repair  to  his  own  chamber,  and  the  king  him- 
self saw  to  it  that  no  zealous  Catholic  harmed  his  surgeon. 
The  king  ordered  him  not  to  stir  from  his  wardrobe,  saying 
it  was  not  reasonable  that  one  who  was  able  to  be  of  service 
to  a  whole  world,  should  be  thus  massacred.  Ambrose  Pare 
did  not  even  protest  against  the  murder  of  his  compatriots  — 
for  in  those  days  a  king  ruled  by  divine  right  and  could  com- 
mit no  wrong. 

How  many  were  massacred?  Who  could  count?  The 
number  does  not  matter;  the  important  thing  is  to  remember 
to  what  lengths  theological  bigotry  can  go.  And  behind  it 
all  loomed  a  humble  religious  woman  who  never  missed  mass 
— Catherine  de  Medici.  She  who  had  asked  Pare  if  he  ex- 
pected to  be  saved,  instigated  the  Massacre  of  Saint  Bartholo- 
mew. 

The  victress  could  not  keep  within  her  rooms.  As  some 
women  love  to  walk  among  their  roses,  she  now  strolled 
among  her  corpses.  She  found  pleasure  in  again  visiting 
Coligny ;  this  time  he  was  hanging  on  a  gibbet.  The  city  after 
the  massacre  seemed  to  call  her  with  an  enticing  voice  —  as 
far  as  the  eye  could  reach  it  feasted  on  the  carcasses  of  her- 
etics. The  sight  of  a  man,  naked  as  well  as  dead,  brought 
to  those  pious  lips  a  jest,  vilely  obscene.  She  had  laid  her 
plans  craftily  and  well;  she  was  amply  satisfied.  Niccolo 
Macchiavelli's  diabolical  treatise,  Del  Principe,  had  found  its 
most  brilliant  exponent. 


110  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

As  for  Ambrose  Pare,  he  had  seen  more  blood  in  one  day 
at  Paris  than  in  his  thirty  years  at  the  wars. 

A  few  days  after  the  massacre,  the  king  said  to  Pare: 
'  Now  you  really  must  be  a  Catholic.' 

'  By  God's  light,'  answered  Pare,  '  I  think  you  must  remem- 
ber to  have  promised  me  never  to  ask  me  four  things :  never 
to  return  to  my  mother's  womb,  never  to  fight  in  a  battle, 
never  to  leave  your  service,  and  never  to  go  to  mass.' 

*  Ambrose,'  said  the  king,  '  I  don't  know  what  has  come 
over  me  for  the  last  two  or  three  days,  but  I  feel  my  mind 
and  my  body  greatly  excited,  in  fact,  just  as  if  I  had  a  fever; 
meseems,  every  moment,  just  as  much  waking  as  sleeping, 
that  those  massacred  corpses  keep  appearing  to  me  with  their 
faces  all  hideous  and  covered  with  blood.  I  wish  the  helpless 
and  the  innocent  had  not  been  included.' 

The  young  man  should  have  gone  to  his  mother  —  she  felt 
no  qualms.  Truly,  the  fate  of  heretics  was  not  calculated  to 
disturb  an  orthodox  conscience.  When  the  tale  of  the  crim- 
son carnival  was  bruited  abroad,  the  Pope  rejoiced,  the  Duke 
of  Alva  laughed,  and  Philip  II  ordered  all  churches  in  Spain 
to  peal  forth  paeans  of  praise,  to  ring  out  Te  Deum.  But  two 
centuries  later,  Voltaire,  whom  all  religionists  abhor,  wept  a 
poem  of  pity.  Modern  Catholics  have  grown  ashamed  of  the 
papal  hilarity,  and  attempt  to  deny  it,  but  — 

The  moving  Finger  writes  —  and  having  writ, 
Moves  on;  nor  all  your  piety  and  wit, 

Shall  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  line, 
Nor  all  your  tears  wash  out  a  word  of  it. 

So  many  thousands  slaughtered,  and  all  in  vain.  For  one 
young  Huguenot,  a  pupil  of  Coligny,  narrowly  escaping  with 
his  life,  lived  to  become  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  eighteen  years 
after  the  massacre  he  led  the  Huguenot  forces  to  victory  over 
the  Catholic  League  at  the  battle  of  Ivry,  and  later  estab- 
lished the  Edict  of  Nantes  which  proclaimed  religious  liberty 
thruout  the  land: 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  111 

Oh!  how  our  hearts  were  beating,  when,  at  the  dawn  of  day, 
iWe  saw  the  army  of  the  League  drawn  out  in  long  array; 
With  all  its  priest-led  citizens,  and  all  its  rebel  peers, 
And  Appenzel's  stout  infantry,  and  Egmontfs  Flemish  spears, 
There  rode  the  brood  of  false  Lorraine,  the  curses  of  our  land, 
And  dark  Mayenne  was  in  the  midst,  a  truncheon  in  his  hand; 
And  as  we  looked  on  them,  we  thought  of  Seine's  empurpled  flood, 
And  good  Coligny's  hoary  hair  all  dabbled  with  his  blood; 
And  we  cried  unto  the  living  God,  who  rules  the  fate  of  war, 
To  fight  for  his  own  holy  name  and  Henry  of  Navarre. 

Hurrah!  the  foes  are  moving.    Hark  to  the  mingled  din 

Of  fife,  and  steed,  and  trump,  and  drum,  and  roaring  culverin! 

The  fiery  Duke  is  pricking  fast  across  St  Andre's  plain, 

With  all  the  heirling  chivalry  of  Guelders  and  Almayne. 

,Now  by  the  lips  of  those  ye  love,  fair  gentlemen  of  France, 

Charge  for  the  golden  lilies  now  upon  them  with  the  lance! 

A  thousand  spurs  are  striking  deep,  a  thousand  spears  in  rest, 

A  thousand  knights  are  pressing  close  behind  the  snow-white  crest; 

And  in  they  burst,  and  on  they  rushed,  while,  like  a  guiding  star, 

Amidst  the  thickest  carnage  blazed  the  helmet  of  Navarre. 

Now,  God  be  praised,  the  day  is  ours!  Mayenne  hath  turned  his  rein, 
D'Aumale  hath  cried  for  quarter,  the  Flemish  Count  is  slain, 
Their  ranks  are  breaking  like  thin  clouds  before  a  Biscay  gale; 
The  field  is  heaped  with  bleeding  steeds,  and  flags  and  cloven  mail; 
And  then  we  thought  on  vengeance,  and  all  along  our  van, 
Remember  St  Bartholomew,  was  passed  from  man  to  man; 
But  out  spake  gentle  Henry  then,  'No  Frenchman  is  my  foe; 
Down,  down  with  every  foreigner,  but  let  your  brethren  go.' 
Oh!  was  there  ever  such  a  knight  in  friendship  or  in  war, 
As  our  sovereign  lord,  King  Henry,  the  soldier  of  Navarre. 

After  the  battle,  the  gallant  chieftain  closed  in  upon  Paris, 
and  besieged  the  city.  But  the  Catholics  swore  to  die  rather 
than  submit  to  a  Huguenot  —  and  they  kept  their  word. 
While  the  people  were  eating  the  filth  that  they  picked  from 
the  gutter,  devouring  the  bodies  of  the  slain  and  chewing  the 
bones  of  the  dead,  the  priests  put  on  armor  and  threatened  to 
hang  all  who  spoke  of  peace  —  and  they  kept  their  word. 

But  again  there  was  one  exception  —  Ambrose  Pare  was 
spared  a  second  time.  Stepping  out  from  his  house  one  day, 
the  venerable  surgeon  found  himself  face  to  face  with  the 
leader  of  the  League,  the  powerful  Archbishop  of  Lyon. 


112  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

The  prelate  had  intended  to  cross  the  Pont  Saint  Michel,  but 
found  his  way  blocked  by  a  starving  mass  of  moaning 
wretches. 

'  Monseigneur,'  cried  Pare,  '  this  poor  people  that  now 
gather  around  you  are  dying  of  the  cruel  pains  of  famine,  and 
they  ask  pity  of  you.  For  God's  sake  have  pity  on  them  if 
you  wish  God  to  have  pity  on  you.  By  your  high  office,  and 
by  that  power  which  we  all  know  you  possess,  bring  about 
peace  for  us,  and  give  us  a  way  of  living,  for  the  poor  are  now 
utterly  helpless.  Do  you  not  see  that  all  Paris  is  dying,  be- 
cause of  the  villains  who  prevent  peace?  Set  your1  whole 
heart  against  them,  Monseigneur;  take  in  hand  the  cause  of 
this  desperate  people,  and  God  will  bless  you  and  repay  you.' 

The  astonished  Archbishop  returned  no  answer,  but  walked 
away.  Ambrose  Pare  was  an  aged  man,  and  within  a  few 
months  was  to  take  his  departure  from  life.  This  is  the  last 
time  that  we  see  him  upon  the  stage  of  history,  but  we  are 
thankful  for  the  glimpse  which  exhibits  to  us  the  military 
surgeon  raising  his  voice  aloud  for  peace. 

But  now  let  us  look  backward,  and  name  the  books  he 
wrote,  and  briefly  sum  up  his  life  work.  In  1545  he  pub- 
lished his  first  book  on  the  advice  of  Sylvius,  as  we  have  al- 
ready mentioned.  It  was  dedicated  to  M.  le  Vicomte  de 
Rohan.  In  1550  he  published  A  Compendium  of  the  Chief 
Facts  of  Anatomy,  which  contained  also  a  treatise  on  Obstet- 
rics. The  Compendium  was  written  as  the  result  of  dissec- 
tions made  at  the  School  of  Medicine  with  Thierry  de  Hery, 
who  was  famous  even  at  this  early  period  as  a  '  specialist  in 
syphilis.'  This  book,  like  the  first,  was  dedicated  to  M.  le 
Vicomte  de  Rohan.  In  1551  appeared  the  Second  Edition  of 
his  first  book,  this  time  with  a  dedication  to  the  King.  In 
1561  he  published  Wounds  and  Fractures  of  the  Human  Head. 
It  contained  illustrations  of  the  instruments  and  a  portrait  of 
Pare.  It  was  probably  occasioned  by  the  death  of  Henri  II, 
whose  case  it  recounts  at  length.  The  dedicatee  was  Chapelin. 
This  year  saw  also  the  publication  of  his  Universal  Anatomy 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  113 

of  the  Human  Body.  It  contained  Fare's  portrait,  and  was 
written  as  the  result  of  dissections  at  the  School  of  Medicine 
with  Rostaing  Bignosc.  It  is  very  interesting  to  note  that 
many  of  the  illustrations  were  taken  from  Vesalius,  whom,  by 
the  way,  Pare  had  probably  met  at  the  death-bed  of  Henri  II, 
for  Philip  had  sent  his  great  anatomist  there.  In  1568  was 
published  Fare's  Ten  Books  of  Surgery.  It  contained  por- 
traits and  illustrations,  and  was  dedicated  to  the  king.  This 
year  likewise  saw  the  appearance  of  his  Treatise  on  the  Plague, 
Smallpox,  and  Measles.  It  contained  also  a  short  account 
of  Leprosy.  It  was  written  at  the  request  of  Catherine  de 
Medici,  and  dedicated  to  Castellan.  In  1572  he  published  Two 
Books  of  Surgery.  No  copy  of  this  edition  is  known  to  be  in 
existence.  The  next  year  he  published  also  a  surgical  work, 
dedicated  to  M.  le  Due  d'Uzes.  In  1582  he  published  On 
Mummy  and  Unicorn,  in  which  he  wisely  and  vigorously  at- 
tacked these  worthless  drugs  which  were  then  supposed  to 
be  a  panacea  for  all  ills,  a  sort  of  forerunner  of  Peruna. 
How  Pare  discovered  they  were  humbugs  is  not  known. 
Probably  the  mummy  and  the  unicorn  failed  to  cure  his  tooth- 
ache. The  book  was  dedicated  to  M.  des  Ursins.  It  will  be 
noticed  that  the  Dukes  and  Viscounts  to  whom  Pare  dedicated 
his  books,  tho  great  guns  in  their  day,  are  now  not  even  toy- 
pistols.  Oho,  for  the  whirligig  o'  time! 

Four  editions  of  the  Collected  Works  of  Ambrose  Pare 
appeared  during  his  lifetime:  in  1575,  in  1579,  in  1582,  in 
1585.  The  third  edition  was  in  Latin,  the  translator  being 
Jacques  Guillemeau.  When  the  reactionary  mummies  who 
comprised  the  Paris  Faculty  heard  that  a  Latin  translation 
was  made  by  one  who  was  not  a  member  of  their  body,  they 
were  sufficiently  enlivened  to  meet  in  council  and  pass  this 
resolution :  '  Since  there  is  nobody  but  a  member  of  the 
school  who  would  know  how  to  make  the  translation,  it  is  dis- 
graceful to  leave  it  to  over-presumptuous  surgeons,  incapable 
of  writing  a  page  of  Latin.'  A  committee  was  appointed, 
and  it  actually  acted;  within  nine  days  it  suggested  a  title  for 


114  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Fare's  works,  and  savagely  decreed  that  '  any  leaves  of  the 
book  having  upon  them  any  other  title  but  this,  to  be  effaced, 
torn  up,  and  kept  for  some  vile  purpose.'  But  Pare  only 
laughed  at  their  confounded  nonsense;  for  years  he  fought 
valiantly  against  the  Faculty,  and  aimed  many  a  shaft  at  its 
contemptible  dean,  Estienne  Gourmelen: 

'  Let  me  say/  wrote  Pare,  '  you  are  like  a  young  lad  of  Low 
Brittany,  who  asked  leave  of  his  father  to  come  to  Paris. 
When  he  had  come,  the  Organist  of  the  Church  of  Our  Lady 
found  him  at  the  Palace  Gate,  and  took  him  to  blow  the  or- 
gans, and  there  he  was  three  years.  He  sees  he  can  speak 
a  little  French,  and  goes  home  to  his  father,  and  tells  him  he 
speaks  good  French,  and  moreover  knows  how  to  play  well 
on  the  organs:  his  father  received  him  very  joyfully,  that  he 
was  so  clever  in  a  short  time.  He  went  to  the  Organist  of 
their  great  church  there,  and  prayed  him  to  let  his  son  play 
on  the  organs,  so  that  he  might  know  whether  he  were  a  skil- 
ful master  as  he  said :  which  the  Master  Organist  granted  will- 
ingly. Being  entered  into  the  organs,  he  cast  himself  with  a 
great  leap  at  the  bellows :  the  Master  Organist  bids  him  play, 
and  he  himself  would  blow  the  bellows.  Then  the  young 
man  tells  him,  I  know  nothing  else  but  only  how  to  play  on 
the  bellows.  You  too,  mon  petit  Maistre,  I  think  you  know 
nothing  else  but  how  to  chatter  in  a  Chair;  but  as  for  me, 
I  will  play  upon  the  keys,  and  make  the  organs  sound.' 

In  most  respects  Pare  was  ahead  of  the  surgical  knowledge 
of  his  day,  but  not  in  all.  For  instance,  while  his  contempo- 
rary, Gaspardus  Tagliacozzi,  was  developing  the  important  art 
of  Plastic  Surgery,  Pare  pooh-poohed  it,  but  many  a  man  to- 
day considers  rhinoplasty  the  most  blessed  of  sciences. 

The  name  of  Pare  has  gone  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  be- 
cause of  his  advocacy  of  the  ligature,  but  he  was  not  its  dis- 
coverer, for  Hippocrates  knew  of  it,  and  Hippocrates  lived 
46o-357  B.  C.  '  Say  what  you  will/  said  Emerson  to  his 
philosophic  readers,  '  you  will  find  it  all  in  Plato.'  Say  what 
you  will,  my  medical  friend®,  let  your  laboratories  turn  out 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  115 

a  new  discovery  every  time  a  liquid  filters  thru  a  funnel;  an- 
nounce a  modern  theory  every  time  a  patient  has  a  fever ;  talk 
of  rational  therapeutics,  dietetics,  massage,  sanitation,  the 
value  of  rest,  clinical  observation,  mental  suggestion,  anything 
you  like, —  and  you  will  find  it  all  in  Hippocrates. 

Pare  had  reached  the  conclusion  that  since  ligatures  were 
applied  to  veins  and  arteries,  there  was  no  reason  why  they 
should  not  be  equally  used  in  amputations.  At  the  seige  of 
Danvilliers  he  determined  to  test  his  theory  on  a  combatant 
whose  leg  was  shattered  by  a  ball  from  the  fortress.  Pare 
performed  the  amputation,  but  instead  of  searing  the  stump 
with  the  red-hot  iron  —  and  there  were  no  anesthetics  in  those 
days  —  he  employed  the  ligature,  to  the  contentment  of  his 
patient  who  enthusiastically  declared  that  he  had  got  rid  of 
his  leg  on  very  good  terms.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  famous 
operation  in  the  entire  history  of  surgery. 

Pare  was  a  prominent  adherent  of  massage  —  that  delight- 
ful system  which  was  known  in  the  days  of  Homer,  when  the 
beautiful  women  rubbed  the  weary  limbs  of  the  Grecian  war- 
riors. 

Gentleness  was  not  a  conspicuous  feature  of  the  Dark  Ages : 
in  operating  for  hernia,  hydrocele  and  sarcocele, —  altho  the 
Roman  Celsus  knew  better  —  it  was  habitual  for  the  medieval 
surgeons  to  cut  out  either  one  or  both  testicles.  Franco  and 
Pare  protested  against  this  barbarity. 

On  the  question  of  quiet,  Pare  has  written  so  admirable  a 
passage  that  I  quote  it  for  the  benefit  of  Mrs  Isaac  L.  Rice 
and  her  worthy  Anti-Noise  Society :  '  The  patient  must  be 
in  a  place  of  rest,  as  far  from  loud  noise  as  possible,  far  from 
church  bells,  not  near  a  farrier's,  a  cooper's,  carpenter's,  or 
armourer's  shop,  or  the  traffic  of  carts  or  the  like,  because 
noise  increases  pain,  fever,  and  other  complications.' 

Pare  recommended  for  spinal  disease  two  plates  of  iron,  a 
posterior  and  an  anterior  one,  fastened  together  in  the  form 
of  a  cross.  It  is  thought  that  his  corset  was  the  earliest  splint 
intended  to  be  worn  for  diseased  spine. 


116  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Pare  was  among  the  first  to  demonstrate  that  gunshot 
wounds  are  not  poisonous,  and  he  held  that  the  air  itself  is 
beneficial  rather  than  deleterious  to  the  injury,  but  that  it  was 
the  miasms  in  the  air  which  often  converted  hospitals  of  the 
sick  into  morgues  of  the  dead. 

Pare  was  eminent  as  a  syphilologist :  he  employed  the 
speculum  for  examining  vaginal  and  uterine  venereal  af- 
fections, discussed  the  nature  of  syphilitic  bubo,  and  made  the 
first  detailed  communication  of  hereditary  syphilis. 

Pare  advanced  the  art  of  obstetrics  to  a  considerable  extent, 
wrote  on  the  subject,  and  restored  the  podalic  version.  In  this 
reform  of  midwifery,  his  pupil  and  son-in-law,  Jacques  Gil- 
lemeau,  was  associated  with  him  and  won  considerable  fame. 

The  Leaning  Tower  of  Pisa  is  secure,  but  the  life  of  man 
passes  away  in  a  night.  Only  a  short  time  ago  I  began  to 
write  the  first  pages  of  this  sketch,  and  the  medical  historian 
Johann  Baas  was  in  the  land  of  the  living;  now  I  am  ap- 
proaching the  end  of  my  little  essay,  but  Johann  Baas  has  al- 
ready joined  the  great  physicians  whose  deeds  he  chronicled. 
But  on  the  bookshelf  still  remains  his  History  of  Medicine. 
This  is  what  he  wrote  of  the  achievements  of  Ambrose  Pare: 
'  He  discarded  the  frequent  dressing  of  ulcers,  and  castration 
in  the  so-called  radical  operation  for  hernia.  He  performed 
herniotomy  in  strangulated  hernise  (most  probably  only  at 
the  suggestion  of  Franco),  tho  this  operation  was  often  per- 
formed too  in  his  day  by  itinerant  herniotomists.  He  was  the 
first  surgeon  to  habitually  employ  trusses,  tho  this  instrument 
was  already  known  to  antiquity.  Pare  also  taught  how  to 
recognize  induration  of  the  prostate  and  fracture  of  the  neck 
of  the  femur.  He  introduced  the  operation  of  staphyloplasty 
and  an  improved  method  of  trepanning  with  the  crown  tre- 
pan, and  invented  numerous  instruments  including  feeding 
bottles  for  artificial  nourishment.  He  performed  bronchot- 
omy,  and  employed  the  ligature  in  the  treatment  of  fistula  in 
ano ;  healed  wounds  of  the  nerves ;  circumscribed  the  employ- 


PARE,  THE  SURGEON  117 

merit  of  the  actual  cautery,  particularly  in  operations  for  can- 
cer of  the  breast;  revived  the  operation  for  hare-lip  with  the 
figure  of  8  suture,  in  which  he  was  the  first  to  follow  the 
Arabians  and  Pfolspeundt;  was  the  first  to  perform  direct 
excision  of  the  so-called  loose  cartilages  in  the  joints,  and 
was  also  acquainted  with  abscesses  of  the  liver  resulting  from 
injuries  of  the  head.  Pare  likewise  improved  the  medico- 
legal  doctrine  of  mortal  wounds,  practiced  amputation  of  the 
leg  at  the  point  of  election,  and  taught  version  by  the  feet.' 

It  was  the  custom  in  Fare's  day  for  members  of  the  heal- 
ing art  to  keep  secret  all  their  discoveries.  Pare  did  not  fol- 
low these  egotistical  ethics,  saying  the  '  light  of  a  candle  will 
not  diminish,  no  matter  how  many  come  to  light  their  torches 
by  it.'  In  fact,  he  had  a  passion  for  publishing,  a  naive  de- 
light in  announcing  his  newly-acquired  knowledge.  On  one 
occasion  he  got  a  remedy  from  a  quack,  and  gave  for  it  enough 
velvet  to  make  a  pair  of  breeches,  and  a  promise  of  secrecy. 
Pare  soon  published  the  prescription,  and  argued  as  follows: 
'  And  if  any  should  urge  that  I  have  broken  my  promise  to 
this  alchymist,  I  answer  that  since  he  had  sold  it  to  me  it  was 
mine ;  and  anyhow  I  think  I  have  done  him  no  wrong ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  and  I  between  us  have  conferred  a  great  bene- 
fit on  the  public.'  Such  a  passage  exhibits  old  Ambrose  Pare 
in  all  his  childish  sweetness  and  simplicity,  but  it  is  evident 
that  he  never  studied  the  law  of  contracts. 

Some  geniuses  are  so  abnormally  modest  that  tho  often 
over-appreciative  concerning  the  works  of  others,  it  is  impos- 
sible for  them  to  realize  the  value  of  their  own  accomplish- 
ments. However,  not  many  great  men  are  thus  afflicted. 
Merit  and  Modesty  are  not  such  inseparable  twins  as  is  often 
supposed.  Ennius  announced,  '  Let  no  one  weep  for  me,  or 
celebrate  my  funeral  with  mourning,  for  I  still  live  as  I  pass 
to  and  fro  thru  the  mouths  of  men  ' ;  while  even  Ovid  can 
hardly  be  accused  of  literary  diffidence  when  he  proclaims,  '  I 
have  completed  a  work  which  neither  the  anger  of  Jove,  nor 
fire,  nor  steel,  nor  consuming  time  will  be  able  to  destroy.  I 


118  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

shall  be  raised  immortal  above  the  lofty  stars,  and  indelible 
shall  be  my  name.  I  shall  be  read  by  the  lips  of  nations,  and 
thruout  all  ages  shall  I  survive  in  fame.' 

Pare  was  not  one  of  those  who  minimized  the  results  of 
their  own  labors.  '  God  is  my  witness,'  he  says,  '  and  men 
are  not  ignorant  of  it,  that  I  have  labored  more  than  forty 
years  to  throw  light  on  the  art  of  surgery  and  to  bring  it  to 
perfection.  And  in  this  labor  I  have  striven  so  hard  to  at- 
tain my  end,  that  the  ancients  have  naught  wherein  to  excel 
us,  save  the  discovery  of  first  principles:  and  posterity  will 
not  be  able  to  surpass  us  (be  it  said  without  malice  or  offense) 
save  by  some  additions,  such  as  are  easily  made  to  things  al- 
ready discovered.' 

Truly  a  bold  prophecy,  which  we  must  challenge.  Let  us 
look  at  it  fifty  years  after  it  was  made :  is  it  true  ?  Yes,  true. 
One  hundred  years  later  —  and  the  proud  words  cannot  be 
gainsaid.  Still  fifty  years,  and  still  the  prediction  cannot  be 
controverted.  Two  hundred  years  pass  —  what  now  ? 
Bravo,  Pare,  after  two  centuries  to  be  still  in  the  van!  An- 
other fifty  years  roll  by, —  what  then?  What  then?  —  why, 
antiseptics  and  anesthetics  are  discovered,  and  Fare's  boast 
is  utterly  wiped  out.  Scratch  out  his  passage  with  a  trium- 
phant hand.  We  surpass  him  a  thousand  times  and  more! 
That  which  he  never  even  dreamed  of  in  his  most  buoyant 
mood  has  been  accomplished  in  reality. 

Ambrose  Pare  is  no  longer  on  the  skirmish-line  of  surgery, 
fighting  the  advance  battle  for  the  alleviation  of  suffering. 
But  tho  his  children  have  gone  so  far  beyond  him,  they  fol- 
low the  trail  that  he  broadened  and  blazed,  and  Ambrose  Pare 
ever  remains  the  beloved  Father  of  Modern  Surgery. 


(1742-1786) 
SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY 

It  is  not  merely  as  an  investigator  and  discoverer,  but  as  a  high-prin- 
cipled and  unassuming  man,  that  Scheele  merits  our  warmest  admiration. 
His  aim  and  object  was  the  discovery  of  truth.  The  letters  of  the  man 
reveal  to  us  in  the  most  pleasant  way  his  high  scientific  ideal,  his  gen- 
uinely philosophic  temper,  and  his  simple  mode  of  thought.  'It  is  the 
truth  alone  that  we  desire  to  know,  and  what  joy  there  is  in  discovering 
it  I'  With  these  words  he  himself  characterizes  his  own  efforts. 

MEYER:  History  of  Chemistry. 

We  may  regard  Scheele  not  only  as  having  given  the  first  indication 
of  the  rich  harvest  to  be  reaped  by  the  investigation  of  the  compounds  of 
organic  chemistry,  but  as  having  been  the  first  to  discover  and  make 
use  of  characteristic  reactions  by  which  closely  allied  substances  can  be 
detected  and  separated,  so  that  he  must  be  considered  one  of  the  chief 
founders  of  analytical  chemistry. 

ROSCOE:  Treatise  on  Chemistry. 

WHAT  a  strange  creature  Poetry  chose  for  her  prophet  —  a 
blind  man  who  begged  his  bread  thru  seven  towns. 

But  was  not  Philosophy's  founder  similarly  bad  —  a  bow- 
legged,  bald-headed  fellow,  with  goggle  eyes  and  a  sunken 
nose,  who  displeased  the  authorities  and  drained  a  cup  of  hem- 
lock? 

And  I  fear  that  Science  has  been  equally  amiss,  for  the 
father  of  Pharmaceutics  was  a  poor  invalid,  who  passed  his 
days  in  debt,  and  died  young  —  dreaming  of  test-tubes. 

Yet  gibe  not  at  these  men.  The  centuries  uncover  to  them. 
Where  are  the  towns  that  refused  food  and  welcome  to  the 
inspired  singer?  They  are  blotted  from  the  map,  and  if  they 
still  linger  in  the  memory  it  is  only  because  their  unworthy 
streets  were  once  trod  by  the  feet  of  the  poet. 

Does  the  courthouse  in  which  it  was  decided  that  the  phi- 
losopher must  quench  his  immortal  thirst  with  hemlock,  still 
dare  to  stand?  No,  but  the  bust  of  the  intellectual  martyr 
adorns  the  niches  of  a  thousand  museums. 

121 


133  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

And  that  little  drug  store  out  in  Sweden  that  couldn't  pay 
its  expenses  has  taken  off  its  sign,  but  the  experiments  which 
the  chemist  performed  in  that  obscure  village  will  never  be  re- 
moved from  the  sanctuary  of  science. 

Places  are  swallowed  up,  cities  disappear,  nations  decay 
and  kingdoms  perish,  but  an  unusual  man  marches  thru  the 
aisles  of  the  ages,  never  to  be  lost. 

Amebae  may  be  identical,  but  the  minds  of  men  differ; 
Keats  had  the  poetic  instinct,  and  Scheele  the  scientific  spirit. 

Keats  was  apprenticed  to  an  apothecary,  but  he  cared  more 
for  poems  than  pills,  and  sometimes  when  he  mixed  an  oint- 
ment there  came  to  him  a  sunbeam  with  fairies  floating  in  the 
ray.  He  was  a  child  of  Apollo,  not  ^Esculapius,  and  the  lus- 
trous parent  claimed  his  favorite  son.  The  pestle  was  not  for 
the  fingers  that  held  poesy's  pen,  and  he  exchanged  the  galli- 
pots of  the  counter  for  the  galaxy  of  the  heavens,  and  instead 
of  the  dried  remains  of  collected  beetles,  he  searched  for  the 
iridescent  butterflies  that  shake  their  damask  wings  among  the 
morning-glories. 

Scheele  was  sent  to  a  school  of  languages,  but  he  was 
more  interested  in  acids  than  ablatives,  and  the  miracles  that 
take  place  in  a  test-tube  had  for  him  an  awful  fascination. 
And  soon  in  Bauch's  drug  store  was  a  new  clerk,  aged  four- 
teen. Little  Karl  Scheele  had  begun  to  rinse  bottles,  and  to 
wipe  the  dust  from  the  jars  that  were  seldom  used. 
He  removed  all  dirt  from  the  stem  of  the  funnels,  and  when  he 
cleaned  the  metal  mortars  their  polished  surfaces  reflected  back 
his  earnest  features.  And  he  told  his  brothers  and  sisters  all 
about  it,  for  his  parents  had  ten  children  besides  himself,  but 
what  their  names  were  we  really  do  not  know. 

Scheele's  original  work  was  done  mainly  at  night.  It  was 
then  he  saw  what  was  never  seen  before.  When  the  moon 
glorified  the  firmament,  and  a  thousand  starry  orbs  looked 
out,  strange  power  came  to  him,  and  he  planted  his  foot  on 
untrodden  ground.  In  his  skillful  hands  the  crucible  became 
a  sesame  that  unlocked  the  door  of  nature.  His  spatula  was 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY 

a  magic  wand  that  brought  forth  unknown  things.  He  filled 
his  capsules  with  the  powders  of  research.  His  tongs  pulled 
hot  coals  of  fact  from  the  boiling  caldron  of  knowledge. 
With  the  bellows  of  reason  he  fanned  the  fires  of  truth. 
When  his  condenser  was  heated  with  experiment,  it  was  dis- 
coveries that  distilled  over.  Hark,  how  the  midnight  was 
startled  by  the  bubbling  of  Scheele's  alembic! 

There  came  a  time  when  physics  no  longer  ministered  to  the 
ailing  body  of  the  apothecary  of  Koping.  Purges  were  tried, 
but  without  avail;  balsams  and  liniments  helped  not,  and  he 
went  to  the  land  where  prescriptions  are  neither  prescribed  nor 
dispensed.  Yes,  he  died,  leaving  a  drugstore  and  a  widow; 
and  Scheele  wanted  both  of  them.  He  bought  the  former, 
and  hoped  to  acquire  the  latter  when  circumstances  per- 
mitted. (To-day  his  statue  stands  at  Stockholm,  but  in  those 
days  he  couldn't  pay  his  bills.)  Business  was  bad,  and  it  was 
only  several  years  later  that  they  married.  And  such  a  mar- 
riage —  with  Death  for  the  priest ! 

Science  seemed  jealous  that  this  man  should  take  another 
mistress,  and  two  days  later  he  died.  He  had  no  children  — 
so  all  chemists  could  call  him  father.  Perhaps  it  is  better  so. 
Like  so  many  other  great  men,  he  might  have  become  the  sire 
of  pigmies.  Intellectual  giant  that  he  was,  from  his  loins 
might  have  sprung  a  race  of  dwarfs.  Aurelius  was  noble,  his 
son  was  a  monster;  Cromwell  was  mighty,  his  child  was  a 
weakling;  Goethe  was  everything,  his  offspring  was  nothing. 
Heredity  is  a  humbug  —  often. 

In  estimating  Scheele's  work  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  in 
his  day  chemistry  had  just  thrown  off  the  fantastic  garb  of 
the  alchemists  and  was  hardly  accustomed  to  the  scientific 
clothes  which  it  had  lately  donned. 

It  is  true  that  among  the  contemporaries  were  great-brained 
workers  like  Black,  Bergmann,  Cavendish,  Priestley,  Ruther- 
ford, and  Lavoisier ;  that  '  the  subtill  science  of  holy  alkimy ' 
was  dead  among  enlightened  men ;  that  the  Universal  Solvent 
was  forgotten  and  the  Philosopher's  Stone  unsought  for ;  that 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

he  was  never  asked  to  compound  the  following  prescription: 
'  Calcine  vitriol  until  it  becomes  yellow,  add  mistletoe,  hearts 
of  peonies,  elk's  hoofs,  and  the  pulverized  skull  of  a  malefac- 
tor; distill  all  these  dry,  rectify  the  distillate  over  castoreum 
and  elephant's  lice,  then  mix  with  salt  of  peony,  spirit  of  wine, 
liquors  of  pearls  and  corals,  oil  of  aniseed  and  oil  of  amber, 
and  digest  on  a  water-bath  one  month.' 

Still  at  this  time  Chemistry  stood  only  on  Mount  Abarim 
and  gazed  at  the  Promised  Land  which  it  was  not  to  enter 
until  the  ensuing  century. 

To-day  we  know  about  eighty  elements;  he  knew  about 
fifteen. 

In  Scheele's  day  fire  was  procured  by  means  of  flint  and 
steel  with  tinder-boxes  and  sulphur-tipped  splints  of  wood. 
It  was  forty  years  after  his  death  before  the  first  friction 
matches  were  invented  by  the  English  druggist,  John  Walker, 
of  Stockton-on-Tees. 

Only  after  his  body  had  turned  to  dust,  was  gas  used  for 
lighting,  was  the  hydraulic  press  patented,  was  the  Voltaic 
pile  made,  was  electro-magnetism  discovered,  was  the  lime- 
light of  Drummond  invented,  and  the  Daguerreotype  process 
introduced. 

Scheele  died  in  1786,  and  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  that  Dalton  announced  his  atomic 
theory  and  formulated  the  law  of  definite  proportions 
which  became  the  immediate  cause  of  innumerable  discover- 
ies. MendeleyefFs  important  system,  in  which  it  is  shown 
that  the  properties  of  the  elements  are  periodic  functions  of 
their  atomic  weights,  came  much  later  still. 

In  1805  Serturner  discovered  the  basic  constituents  of 
opium,  and  thus  paved  the  way  for  the  alkaloids,  but  Scheele 
never  heard  of  morphine,  strychnine  or  quinine. 

By  means  of  the  galvanic  battery,  Humphry  Davy  did  won- 
drous things  —  he  discovered  element  after  element,  he  decom- 
posed water  into  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  he  separated  salts  into 
acid  and  base,  he  resolved  acids  into  their  electro-positive  and 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  185 

electro-negative  constituents,  he  simplified  bases  into  the  metal 
and  oxygen, —  but  there  was  no  voltaic  chemistry  while 
Scheele  lived. 

Michael  Faraday  began  systematic  work  in  the  liquefaction 
of  gases  and  liquefied  chlorine,  hydrogen  sulphide,  cyanogen, 
ammonia  and  sulphurous  acid.  On  December  24,  1877,  at  a 
meeting  of  the  French  Academy  a  paper  by  Cailletet  was  read 
containing  these  welcome  words:  '  I  have  just  this  day  lique- 
fied oxygen  and  carbon  monoxide.'  There  was  another  paper 
by  Pictet  announcing :  '  To-day  I  liquefied  oxygen  at  a  pres- 
sure of  320  atmospheres  and  a  temperature  of  — •  140°  C,  ob- 
tained by  means  of  liquid  sulphurous  and  carbonic  acid.'  The 
patient  Dewar  succeeded  in  securing  obstinate  hydrogen  not 
only  in  a  liquid  but  even  in  a  solid  state.  Mighty  deeds; 
Scheele's  heart  would  have  leaped  at  them,  but  he  never 
knew. 

Nor  did  he  ever  know  that  urea,  an  organic  body,  could 
be  produced  artificially  in  a  laboratory. 

Scheele  had  not  the  hundredth  part  of  the  delicate  and  in- 
tricate instruments  with  which  the  chemist  of  to-day  is  sup- 
plied. His  apparatus  was  of  the  crudest  sort,  and  much  of 
it  he  was  compelled  to  manufacture  himself.  He  never  saw  a 
polariscope,  or  a  balance  which  weighed  a  pencil-mark.  Had 
he  seen  a  laboratory  like  Sir  William  Ramsay's,  his  actions 
would  have  resembled  those  of  his  great  countryman,  Lin- 
naeus the  Botanist,  when  he  first  spied  an  English  wild-flower, 
—  the  earth  would  have  felt  his  knees. 

When  we  remember  these  hardships  and  at  the  same  time 
recall  the  immense  amount  of  valuable  work  he  accomplished, 
we  realize  what  manner  of  man  was  Scheele.  The  pioneer 
who  blazes  the  trail  in  an  unknown  forest,  surely  deserves  as 
much  credit  as  he  who  comes  leisurely  after  and  helps  to  widen 
the  already-made  path.  If  the  second  is  the  more  cultured 
of  the  two,  he  is  the  less  original. 

Because  of  Scheele's  devotion  to  it,  mention  must  here  be 
made  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  hypotheses  that  ever  en- 


126  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

tered  into  the  history  of  chemistry  —  the  Phlogistic  theory. 
This  doctrine  which  was  introduced  by  Johann  Joachim 
Becher  and  championed  by  George  Ernst  Stahl  had  special 
reference  to  the  alterability  of  substances  by  fire.  Its  essential 
feature  consisted  in  assuming  that  all  matter  which  could 
burn  was  a  compound,  containing  at  least  two  constituents. 
On  combustion,  one  of  these  remained  behind  and  one  es- 
caped. The  element  which  remained  was  named  calyx,  the 
principle  which  disappeared  was  called  Phlogiston.  It  cor- 
responded somewhat  to  the  '  celestial  heat '  of  earlier  chem- 
ists. Since  this  Phlogiston  existed  in  all  combustible  sub- 
stances and  always  vanished  on  heating,  it  was  believed  that 
every  time  a  substance  was  burned  it  grew  lighter. 

In  due  time  it  began  to  be  pointed  out  that  some  sub- 
stances when  heated,  instead  of  becoming  lighter,  become 
heavier,  and  that  often  the  products  of  combustion  weigh 
more  than  the  substances  burned.  It  was  shown  that  when 
zinc  is  burned,  it  changes  into  a  white  powder  which  is  heavier 
than  the  original  metal. 

Lavoisier  knew  that  when  phosphorus  burns,  the  acid  body 
formed  by  the  combustion  weighs  more  than  the  phosphorus 
did.  But  it  takes  a  long  time  for  a  naked  fact  to  destroy 
a  theory  intrenched  in  argument,  and  defended  by  dialectics. 
Yet  already  the  casket  of  Phlogiston  was  being  prepared,  and 
Lavoisier  was  the  immortal  undertaker. 

Oxygen  was  discovered  by  Priestley  and  Scheele,  nitro- 
gen was  found  by  Rutherford,  the  air  was  analyzed  by  Caven- 
dish, and  a  great  light  illumined  the  mind  of  the  French  chem- 
ist, and  the  death-knell  of  the  doctrine  of  Becher  and  Stahl 
was  rung.  Hitherto,  combustion  was  thought  to  be  due  to  a 
chemical  decomposition  in  which  Phlogiston  escapes,  but  La- 
voisier now  accounted  for  the  phenomenon  of  combustion  by 
chemical  combination,  oxygen  or  another  element  being  taken 
up. 

The  cover  was  ready  to  be  nailed  to  the  coffin.  And  the 
talented  wife  of  Antoine  Laurent  Lavoisier, —  Liebig  has  told 


SCKEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  127 

us  so, —  robed  as  a  priestess,  committed  to  the  flames  on  an 
altar,  while  a  solemn  requiem  was  chanted,  the  phlogistic  sys- 
tem of  chemistry. 

After  Copernicus  there  was  no  more  excuse  for  astrology ; 
after  Darwin  there  was  no  more  reason  for  immutability; 
and  after  Lavoisier  there  was  no  further  justification  for 
Phlogiston.  But  the  roots  of  pre-conceived  notions  are  long 
and  strong,  and  take  generations  to  uproot.  Only  one 
chemist  of  that  age  accepted  the  new  truth.  Sole  among 
contemporary  scientists,  Joseph  Black  —  forever  illustrious 
as  the  discoverer  of  latent  and  specific  heat  —  announced 
himself  an  adherent  of  the  Lavoiserian  doctrine  of  combus- 
tion. 

Priestley,  Cavendish  and  Scheele  remained  firm  believers 
in  the  phlogistic  theory  which  their  researches  had  done  so 
much  to  upset. 

So  Scheele  was  wrong,  but  what  scientist  has  made  no  mis- 
take ?  Galileo  discovered  a  new  heaven,  but  he  laughed  when 
Kepler  claimed  that  the  tide  is  influenced  by  the  moon.  Har- 
vey discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  but  he  saw  no 
merit  in  Bartholin's  researches  on  the  lacteals  and  lymphatics. 
Perhaps  we  must  say  of  these  men  as  Carlyle  said  of  Jesus, 
'  A  great  mon,  a  great  mon,  but  he  had  his  limitations.' 

Science  has  a  sorrowful  list  of  wondrous  youngsters  who 
disappeared  from  life  when  the  brain  was  still  eager,  and  the 
spirit  ardent.  Scheele  was  one  of  these.  In  his  forty-fourth 
year  he  was  added  to  the  roll  of  short-lived  geniuses.  Yet 
tho  the  days  of  his  life  were  few,  he  labored  long  and  lovingly, 
for  he  was  in  the  service  of  science,  and  some  of  the  benefits 
he  rendered  her  are  here  recorded: 

In  1769,  while  still  in  his  twenties,  he  experimented  with 
cream  of  tartar,  from  which  compound  he  was  the  first  to 
isolate  tartaric  acid.  He  sent  a  record  of  his  experiments  to 
Torben  Bergmann,  the  foremost  Swedish  chemist.  The  pro- 
fessor was  a  generous  friend,  but  at  this  time  must  have  been 
absorbed  in  his  own  work,  for  he  failed  to  convey  the  paper 


128  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Stockholm,  which,  however, 
was  later  done  by  Anders  Retzius. 

As  far  back  as  1669  the  alchemist  Brandt  of  Hamburg, 
while  searching  for  the  '  philosopher's  stone '  that  converts 
lead  to  silver  and  ennobles  brass  to  gold,  distilled  an  evapo- 
rated mixture  of  urine  and  sand,  and  obtained,  not  the  '  elixir 
of  life/  but  —  phosphorus.  This  yellow  waxy  solid  which 
shone  so  mysteriously  in  the  dark,  and  burned  with  such  a 
dazzling  light,  was  exhibited  in  the  courts  of  Europe  and 
attracted  the  attention  of  lords  and  ladies  who  had  never  pre- 
viously evinced  a  startling  congenital  predisposition  for  scien- 
tific pursuits.  Phosphorus  is  used  in  medicine  as  a  sexual 
aphrodisiac,  and  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  if  it  was  the 
Merry  Monarch  and  his  royal  revellers  who  discovered  this 
therapeutic  fact. 

For  a  hundred  years  the  peculiar  phosphorescent  element 
remained  a  chemical  curiosity,  costing  about  sixteen  ducats  an 
ounce.  But  in  1771  Scheele  —  building  on  Gahn's  observa- 
tion that  phosphorus  is  a  constituent  of  bone-ash  —  published 
a  method  still  used  in  preparing  the  light-bringer.  Bones  are 
burned  to  remove  all  animal  matter,  and  the  remaining  cal- 
cium phosphate  is  heated  with  hot  sulphuric  acid,  producing 
phosphoric  acid  and  calcium  sulphate.  The  acid  is  then 
strained  from  the  sulphate,  concentrated,  mixed  with  char- 
coal, and  dried  in  an  iron  pot.  Water  escapes  and  metaphos- 
phoric  acid  remains.  The  mixture  is  then  transferred  to  a 
fireclay  retort,  strongly  heated,  and  under  the  water  appears 
the  desired  phosphorus. 

Its  principal  modification  is  the  red  or  amorphous  phos- 
phorus discovered  by  Professor  Schrotter,  of  Vienna.  Altho 
prepared  from  the  yellow  variety,  its  properties  are  essentially 
opposite.  It  is  practically  odorless,  non-poisonous,  non-phos- 
phorescent, insoluble  in  carbon  disulphide,  non-decomposable 
in  the  air. 

Both  the  yellow  and  the  red  phosphorus  are  employed  in 
the  manufacture  of  matches.  Sweden  is  the  world-leader  in 


Painted  for  Pathfinders   in   Medicine 


SCHEELE 


129 

this  instance,  and  exports  yearly,  we  suppose,  about  one  hun- 
dred billion  of  these  fire-tipped  splinters. 

The  ordinary  match  which  we  buy  at  the  grocery  stores  is 
made  by  dipping  the  wooden  sticks  —  impregnated  with  para- 
ffin or  sulphur  to  sustain  combustion  —  in  a  warm  adhesive 
agent  containing  an  emulsion  of  yellow  phosphorus  as  the  oxi- 
dizable  constituent,  potassium  chlorate  and  manganese  diox- 
ide as  the  oxidizing  components,  and  powdered  glass  as  the 
frictional  element. 

Such  a  match  is  a  remarkably  convenient  article,  as  it  can 
easily  ignite  on  the  sole  of  a  gentleman's  shoe  or  the  back  of 
his  trousers.  The  splint  may  be  broken,  but  as  long  as  he 
can  find  the  head  at  the  bottom  of  his  pockets  he  carries  with 
him  the  conscious  power  to  set  clouds  of  happy  smoke  curling 
from  the  burning  altar  of  Nicotia. 

Unfortunately  this  match  is  a  menace  to  safety;  it  starts 
innumerable  accidental  fires,  and  children  die  from  sucking 
and  chewing  it.  It  will  be  recalled  that  Longfellow's  first 
wife,  clothed  in  a  light  summer  dress,  happened  to  step  on 
one  of  these  matches  which  instantly  fed  upon  her  garments 
and  burned  her  to  death. 

The  Swedish  sulphur  match  is  free  from  this  disadvan- 
tage, and  can  be  stepped  on  with  impunity,  but  children  should 
not  be  encouraged  to  use  it  as  a  substitute  for  caramels.  The 
head  contains  potassium  chlorate,  potassium  dichromate,  red 
oxide  of  lead  and  antimony  sulphide.  The  oxidizable  ma- 
terial on  which  the  match  ignites  is  on  the  sides  of  the  box, 
which  consists  of  red  phosphorus,  antimony  sulphide  and 
powdered  silica. 

In  1771  Scheele  investigated  the  composition  of  fluospar 
and  noted  that  the  property  of  etching  glass  when  mixed  with 
sulphuric  acid  was  due  to  the  formation  of  an  acid  which  he 
called  fluor  acid.  Scheele's  operations  had  been  conducted 
in  glass  vessels  and  what  he  really  obtained  was  fluo-silicic 
acid. 

In  1774  Scheele  showed  the  difference  between  pyrolusite 


130  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

(manganese  dioxide)  and  magnetite,  which  previous  chemists 
had  considered  identical. 

He  explained  how  manganese  colorizes  and  decolorizes 
glass,  and  distinguished  the  salts  of  the  lustrous  metal,  includ- 
ing the  green  and  purple  compounds  with  potash.  In  fact,  he 
may  be  considered  the  discoverer  of  this  element. 

In  this  year  he  also  discovered  baryta  (barium  oxide),  a 
heavy,  whitish-gray,  poisonous  compound,  used  for  plate- 
glass  manufacture,  in  color-making,  and  in  the  preparation  of 
oxygen  by  the  Brin  process. 

This  should  have  been  enough  for  one  year,  and  Schecle 
ought  to  have  remembered  that  Nature  herself  sleeps  half  the 
time,  but  instead  of  that  he  discovered  chlorine  by  treating 
manganese  dioxide  with  hydrochloric  acid. 

Scheele  thought  this  gas  was  a  compound  and  called  it  de- 
phlogisticated  muriatic  acid.  Its  elementary  character  was  es- 
tablished in  1810  by  Davy.  He  named  it  chlorine  on  account 
of  its  greenish  color. 

Nor  was  this  all,  for  this  self -same  fertile  year  saw  his  dis- 
covery of  oxygen  —  independently  of  Priestley's  revelation  — 
by  heating  manganese  dioxide  to  redness  in  an  iron  or  clay  re- 
tort. 

Subsequently  Scheele  found  an  improved  method  of  obtain- 
ing this  gas  —  by  heating  manganese  dioxide  with  sulphuric 
acid.  When  manganese  dioxide  is  heated  alone,  100  grams 
of  it  yield  8.51  liters  of  oxygen;  but  when  treated  with  sul- 
phuric acid,  100  grams  produce  12.82  liters  of  oxygen.  The 
reaction  is  now  familiar  to  every  novice,  and  medical  and 
pharmaceutical  colleges  ask  it  in  the  early  quizzes. 

He  shrewdly  speculated  as  to  its  function  in  respiration  and 
the  growth  of  plants,  and  computed  the  amount  of  oxygen  in 
the  air  correctly.  The  term  oxygen  (so  named  by  Lavoisier) 
means  '  acid  producer '  and  is  therefore  a  misnomer,  as  all 
acids  do  not  contain  oxygen.  Hydrogen  should  be  called 
oxygen,  because  all  acids  contain  hydrogen. 

Previous  to  the  discovery  of  oxygen,   Professor  Daniel 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  181 

Rutherford  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  observed  that  by 
absorbing  the  carbon  dioxide  produced  by  respiration  in  an 
enclosed  volume  of  air,  the  remaining  gas  would  support 
neither  combustion  nor  respiration.  But  it  took  a  long  time 
for  scientific  news  to  reach  the  sequestered  (to  use  Washing- 
ton Irving's  favorite  adjective)  Swedish  town  in  those  days, 
and  just  as  Scheele  had  discovered  oxygen  independently  of 
Priestley,  he  also  discovered  nitrogen  without  knowledge  of 
the  Scottish  naturalist's  observation.  Scheele  was  the  first 
then  who  demonstrated,  by  analysis  and  synthesis,  that  the 
air  consists  mainly  of  two  gases,  one  supporting  combustion 
and  the  other  preventing  it. 

The  year  1775  was  as  stirring  for  Scheele  as  it  was  for 
the  English  colonies  in  America.  The  price  of  potash  salts 
was  increasing  enormously,  and  attempts  were  made  to  pro- 
duce the  carbonates  from  common  salt.  The  French  Academy 
of  Sciences  offered  2,400  livres  to  any  one  who  would  succeed 
in  converting  salt  to  soda.  Scheele  at  once  solved  the  prob- 
lem, and  made  soda  from  salt  by  means  of  litharge.  Did  he 

use  the  much-needed  prize-money  for  the  purpose  of ? 

Ssh!  your  hand  to  your  ear,  promise  not  to  tell,  and  we'll 
whisper  you  a  secret :  He  received  not  a  sou. 

Scheele  separated  benzoic  acid  from  benzoin  by  combining 
it  with  a  salifiable  base  and  precipitating  it  with  an  acid. 
Later  Scheele  prepared  it  from  urine  by  the  decomposition  of 
hippuric  acid.  When  benzoic  acid  is  taken  into  the  system, 
it  unites  with  glycocin  with  the  elimination  of  a  molecule  of 
water,  and  is  excreted  as  hippuric  acid.  We  have  thus  an  ex- 
cellent instance  of  synthesis  performed  in  the  marvelous  lat>- 
oratory  of  the  human  body,  which  needs  no  Friedrich  Wohler : 

CHa.NHa      HCaNH.CO.CeHfl 

CoHa.COOH  -H  =1  -fHaO 

COOH         COOH 

[Benzoic  acid]      [Glycocin]      [Hippuric  acid]      [Water] 
He  investigated  arsenic  acid,  a  colorless  crystalline  com- 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

pound  used  in  calico-printing.  This  led  to  his  discovery  of 
arseniureted  hydrogen. 

By  adding  a  solution  of  copper  sulphate  to  sodium  arsenite 
he  obtained  the  grass-green  salt  of  cupric  arsenite.  This 
powder  is  well-known  as  Scheele's  green.  It  is  exceedingly 
poisonous,  is  used  as  a  pigment,  and  in  the  treatment  of  an- 
aemia, diarrhea,  enterocolitis,  and  cholera  morbus. 

He  made  researches  into  the  constitution  of  clay,  quartz, 
and  alum.  Needless  to  say,  his  work  on  the  alums  was  not 
nearly  so  important  as  Bergmann's. 

He  experimented  with  calculus,  an  animal  concretion  formed 
in  various  parts  of  the  body,  from  which  he  was  the 
first  to  secure  uric  acid.  Human  urine  contains  only  a  frac- 
tion of  one  per  cent,  of  uric  acid,  but  it  is  the  principal  nitro- 
genous constituent  of  the  urine  of  birds  and  reptiles.  Out  of 
the  three  pints  of  urine  daily  excreted  by  the  average  healthy 
man,  from  .4  to  .8  grams  is  uric  acid. 

In  1777  he  published  his  book,  A  Chemical  Treatise  on  Air 
and  Fire,  which  can  no  more  be  compressed  into  the  space  of 
an  article  than  the  Baltic  Sea  can  be  put  in  a  tub. 

By  heating  sulphur  with  hydrogen  he  obtained  hydrogen 
sulphide,  and  was  the  first  to  investigate  this  ill-smelling  com- 
pound which  gives  the  odor  to  the  rotten  egg.  It  is  exten- 
sively employed  in  laboratories  as  a  group  precipitant  and  re- 
ducing agent.  It  was  formerly  used  as  an  intestinal  disin- 
fectant, but  fortunately  '  the  H2  S  wash-out '  now  belongs  to 
the  past. 

Scheele's  name  is  intimately  connected  with  the  origin  of 
photography,  for  it  was  he  who  scientifically  investigated  the 
darkening  action  of  sunlight  on  silver  chloride.  Further,  by 
means  of  a  prism  he  threw  the  colored  band  of  light  upon  a 
surface  sensitized  with  silver  chloride  and  noticed  that  the 
violet  rays  blackened  it  more  readily  than  the  other  colors  of 
the  spectrum.  By  utilizing  Scheele's  experiments  Thomas 
Wedgwood,  of  England,  produced  a  photograph. 

Of  course,  there  is  rarely  an  absolutely  new  discovery  in 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  138 

science,  and  if  we  wish  to  go  a  little  further  back  we  can  see 
Johann  Schulze  working  by  a  window  —  when  the  weather 
was  warm  and  the  sun  was  shining.  He  wishes  to  treat  some 
calcium  carbonate  with  nitric  acid,  and  it  so  chances  that  the 
acid  he  uses  has  some  silver  dissolved  in  it.  He  pours  it  on 
the  chalk,  the  rays  from  the  sun  fall  on  the  mixture  and  turn 
it  black,  while  Johann  is  highly  amazed  to  find  that  the  effect 
of  light  is  darkness ! 

If  we  travel  back  still  more  we  learn  that  some  sort  of  a 
beginning  of  photographic  chemistry  originated  with  the  al- 
chemists, and  if  no  one  has  yet  demonstrated  that  Aristotle 
was  the  original  camera  fiend,  some  one  will  come  to  the 
rescue  in  the  near  future. 

Gladly  giving  due  credit  to  all  concerned,  the  fact  remains 
that  Scheele  was  the  first  who  applied  chemical  and  spectrum 
analysis  to  photography,  which  in  the  hands  of  the  skillful 
has  become  a  noble  science  and  a  fine  art. 

In  1778  he  described  a  new  method  of  producing  calomel, 
the  most  valuable  of  the  mercurial  preparations. 

He  proposed  a  new  way  of  making  the  powder  of  Algaroth, 
the  purgative  and  emetic  named  after  the  physician  Algarotus 
of  Verona. 

He  examined  molybdenite,  which  was  thought  to  contain 
lead.  He  proved  the  contrary,  and  secured  from  the  mineral 
molybdic  acid. 

In  1779  Scheele  showed  that  plumbago  consists  almost 
wholly  of  carbon.  During  this  year  he  published  records  of 
his  former  experiments. 

In  1780  he  discovered  lactic  acid  and  showed  it  to  be  the 
cause  of  sour  milk,  as  the  sugar  of  milk  is  transmuted  to  acid. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  later,  Lagrange  and  Fourcroy  and 
Vauquelin  claimed  that  Scheele's  new  acid  was  merely  impure 
acetic,  and  tho  Berzelius  —  discoverer  of  sarcolactic  acid  in 
the  juices  of  the  flesh  —  combated  this  opinion,  it  was  only  in 
1832,  when  Liebig  and  Mitscherlich  analyzed  the  lactates,  that 
the  matter  was  definitely  settled. 


1S4  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Just  at  present  the  distinguished  Metchnikoff  has  brought 
lactic  acid  into  extraordinary  prominence.  Everyone  anxious 
to  prolong  his  visit  to  Mother  Earth  is  making  and  drinking 
'buttermilk.'  Numerous  manufacturers  are  offering  the  lactic 
acid  bacillus  in  all  forms  from  loose  powders  to  compressed 
tablets.  Suspensions  of  the  living  lactic  acid  bacillus  are  now 
used  in  diseases  of  the  nose  and  throat,  and  in  genito-urinary 
work. 

By  boiling  milk  sugar  with  nitric  acid,  he  obtained  mucic 
acid.  It  is  a  white  crystalline  powder,  practically  insoluble  in 
water,  and  on  further  oxidation  yields  racemic  acid,  an  iso- 
meric  modification  of  tartaric  acid,  first  obtained  artificially  in 
1863  by  Pasteur. 

In  1781  he  discovered  the  composition  of  the  vitreous  min- 
eral tungsten.  It  has  since  been  called  Scheelite.  He  ob- 
tained from  it,  tungstic  acid,  which  by  means  of  nitric  acid  is 
precipitated  as  yellow  crystals  from  solutions  of  tungstates. 

In  1782  he  experimented  with  that  highly  volatile  and  in- 
flammable liquid,  ether. 

In  1783  Scheele  boiled  olive  oil,  litharge  and  water  to  get 
lead  plaster.  He  obtained  the  plaster,  but  noticed  also  a  liquid 
which  was  strange  to  him.  He  tasted  it ;  it  was  sweet ;  it  was 
Glycerin!  So  another  important  reaction  was  written  down 
on  Scheele's  scroll. 

This  thick,  oily,  mawkishly  sweet  substance  is  now  one  of 
the  indispensable  necessities  of  the  drug-store.  '  Glycerin,' 
says  Remington,  '  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  liquids  known 
to  pharmacy.'  If  all  the  girls  who  rub  Glycerin  on  their 
hands  at  night  to  keep  them  nice  and  soft,  were  to  lay  a  sweet- 
smelling  flower  on  Scheele's  grave,  the  hanging  gardens  of 
Babylon  would  be  outdone. 

The  remaining  years  of  Scheele's  life  were  devoted  to  the 
products  from  the  acid  saccharine  fruits.  He  thus  completed 
a  cycle,  for  his  first  and  last  discoveries  were  made  in  the  wide 
domain  of  the  vegetable  acids. 

He  extracted  citric  acid  from  lemons  by  a  process  still  used. 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  183 

The  boiling  juice  is  first  completely  saturated  with  finely 
powdered  calcium  carbonate,  and  the  resulting  precipitate  of 
calcium  citrate  allowed  to  subside.  When  it  is  repeatedly 
washed  with  water  and  decomposed  by  dilute  sulphuric  acid, 
an  insoluble  calcium  sulphate  separates  out,  and  the  coveted 
citric  acid  remains  in  solution.  This  is  then  carefully  con- 
centrated in  leaden  boilers  until  a  pellicle  begins  to  form,  when 
it  is  transferred  to  other  vessels  to  cool  and  crystallize. 
Twenty  gallons  of  lemon-juice  should  yield  about  ten  pounds 
of  the  crystallized  citric  acid. 

Tho  citric  acid  is  usually  obtained  from  lemons  or  limes, 
it  exists  also  in  the  juice  of  the  gooseberry,  strawberry,  rasp- 
berry, cranberry,  currant,  cherry,  orange,  and  many  other 
fruits.  Citric  acid  has  been  prepared  artificially  by  Grimaux 
and  Adam,  who  started  with  glycerin,  produced  chloro  and 
cyano  derivatives,  and  finally  got  citric  acid  itself.  Recently 
Carl  Wehmer  has  discovered  that  sugar  solutions,  if  exposed 
to  the  action  of  certain  mold  fungi,  become  transformed  into 
citric  acid,  and  it  is  thought  that  this  method  of  manufacture 
may  replace  the  extraction  from  lemon  juice. 

In  several  of  the  world's  pharmacopoeias  citric  acid  has  for 
its  immediate  neighbor  another  of  Scheele's  discoveries  — 
gallic  acid.  Gallic  acid  exists  free  in  nutgalls,  in  the  leaves 
of  the  bearberry,  in  the  root-bark  of  the  pomegranate,  and 
other  vegetable  substances.  It  is  often  found  combined  as  a 
glucoside.  It  is  prepared  from  the  tannin  of  nutgalls,  either 
by  the  action  of  dilute  acids  or  by  the  change  due  to  mold 
growths. 

Malic  acid  is  likewise  in  Scheele's  Document  of  Discoveries. 
It  is  a  deliquescent  crystalline  compound,  with  a  pleasant  acid 
taste,  and  occurs  in  the  juice  of  most  sour  fruits.  The  most 
interesting  characteristic  of  malic  acid  is  the  fact  that  it 
furnishes  us  with  a  remarkable  example  of  physical  isomerism, 
for  when  naturally  obtained  it  rotates  the  plane  of  polariza- 
tion, but  when  artificially  prepared  is  optically  inactive. 

On  oxidizing  sugar  with  nitric  acid,  Scheele  obtained  an 


136  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

organic  acid  which  he  named  saccharic  acid,  now  called  oxalic 
acid.  Oxalic  acid  is  almost  universally  distributed  thruout 
the  vegetable  kingdom.  From  water  and  carbon  dioxide,  by 
means  of  sunlight  and  chlorophyll  grains,  plants  build  up  this 
compound. 

The  acid  then  combines  with  calcium  carbonate  and  forms 
the  crystalline  calcium  oxalate  so  valuable  to  the  pharmacog- 
noscist  as  a  means  of  recognition  of  powdered  drugs. 

Because  of  the  certainty  and  celerity  of  its  action,  oxalic 
may  supplant  carbolic  acid  as  the  favorite  of  suicides  when 
the  dreaded  phenol  —  on  account  of  its  ceaseless  havoc  among 
the  laity  —  is  altogether  ousted  from  pharmacy.  Oxalic  acid 
can  kill  a  human  being  in  three  minutes.  Because  of  its  re- 
semblance to  Epsom  salts  it  has  on  several  occasions  been 
taken  in  mistake  for  that  much-used  saline  purgative. 

The  only  acid  Scheele  discovered  which  is  called  by  his 
name  is  Scheele's  dilute  hydrocyanic  acid  (prussic  acid),  ob- 
tained by  him  from  Prussian  blue.  It  is  four  or  five  per  cent., 
the  official  acidum  hydrocyanicum  dilutum  of  our  phar- 
macopoeia being  half  that  strength.  In  the  concentrated  form 
it  is  a  rarity  to  be  found  only  in  the  laboratories. 

Prussic  acid  is  found  in  the  pits  of  apples,  in  the  kernel  of 
the  peach  and  in  the  leaves  of  the  laurel.  If  these  are  con- 
sumed in  quantities,  alarming  —  even  if  unexpected  —  illness 
may  result.  The  acid  occurs  also  in  bitter  almonds,  and  when 
their  pulp  is  distilled  we  obtain  the  most  poisonous  of  our 
official  oils.  Prussic  acid  is  another  standby  of  those  intent 
on  self-destruction,  not  only  in  real  life,  but  in  fiction.  For 
instance,  in  Grant  Allen's  The  Woman  Who  Did,  the  heroine 
Herminia  —  after  being  abused  by  her  daughter  —  kills  her- 
self by  drinking  prussic  acid.  A  remarkable  feature  of  this 
deadly  poison  is  the  astonishing  rapidity  with  which  it  causes 
death.  A  thief,  who  was  pursued,  swallowed  a  dose,  stag- 
gered a  few  steps,  fell  to  the  ground  and  expired.  A  drop 
of  the  pure  acid  can  kill  a  frisky  dog  in  a  second.  Professor 
Doremus  in  an  interesting  letter  to  the  Standard  Dictionary, 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  187 

says :  '  I  have  held  a  drop  of  anhydrous  hydrocyanic  acid  on 
a  glass  rod  and  brought  it  toward  a  live  rabbit.  Before  it 
reached  the  animal,  he  dropped  dead  from  inhaling  the  vapor.' 

It  is  said  that  Scheele  himself  was  suddenly  killed  by  in- 
haling the  vapors  of  the  terrible  poison  he  discovered,  but 
while  we  hardly  think  this  is  the  fact  in  his  case,  it  is  true 
that  it  has  ended  the  career  of  more  than  one  subsequent 
chemist. 

The  series  of  experiments  which  Scheele  conducted  in  con- 
nection with  Prussian  blue  —  laying  the  important  foundation 
of  our  present  knowledge  of  the  cyanides  —  has  excited  the 
enthusiasm  of  modern  chemists,  and  with  a  tribute  on  this 
topic  from  the  learned  pen  of  Professor  John  Ferguson  of 
the  University  of  Glasgow,  we  close  our  meagre  account  of 
Scheele's  momentous  work: 

'In  1782-1783  appeared  a  research  which  —  of  all  those 
Scheele  conducted  —  exhibits  his  experimental  genius  at  its 
very  best.  By  a  wonderful  succession  of  experiments  he 
showed  that  the  coloring  matter  of  Prussian  blue  could  not 
be  produced  without  the  presence  of  a  substance  of  the  nature 
of  an  acid,  to  which  was  ultimately  given  the  name  of  prussic 
acid.  He  showed  how  this  body  was  composed,  described 
its  properties,  and  compounds,  and  mentioned  its  smell  and 
taste,  utterly  unaware  of  its  deadly  character.  Nothing  but 
a  study  of  Scheele's  own  memoir  can  give  an  adequate  no- 
tion of  the  manner  in  which  he  attacked  and  solved  a  problem 
so  difficult  and  complicated  as  this  was  at  the  period  in  the 
history  of  chemistry  when  Scheele  lived.  .  .  .  His  ac- 
curacy, qualitative  and  quantitative,  considering  his  primitive 
apparatus,  his  want  of  assistance,  his  place  of  residence,  the 
undeveloped  state  of  chemical  and  physical  science  —  was  un- 
rivaled. He  grudged  no  labor  to  make  the  truth  indisputable ; 
and  he  evidently  never  considered  his  work  complete  about  any 
body  unless  he  could  both  unmake  and  remake  it.  For  him 
chemistry  was  both  an  analytic  and  a  synthetic  .science,  and  he 
shows  this  prominently  in  his  researches  on  Prussian  blue. 


138 

.  .  .  The  one  aim  of  Scheele's  life  —  and  he  never 
swerved  from  it  —  was  the  experimental  discovery  of  the 
truth  in  nature.' 

This  was  Scheele's  aim.  Whose  aim  was  higher?  This 
is  what  Scheele  did.  Who  has  done  better? 

High  are  the  pointed  peaks  of  Sulitelma,  O  Sweden! 
where  the  cooling  cataracts  rush  down  the  crags  of  the  moun- 
tain. In  the  Baltic  is  the  island  of  Oland,  whose  rocks  of 
Silurian  limestone  have  battled  for  centuries  with  the  god  of 
storms.  Near  the  North  Cape  rises  a  mighty  slab  of  granite, 
thousands  of  feet  in  height,  with  every  niche  containing  the 
nest  of  an  Arctic  bird.  Calm  are  the  waters  of  Maelar,  and 
the  falls  of  Motala  turn  the  wheels  of  many  mills.  The  lake 
of  Vener  is  large,  and  Tornea  Elf  flows  down  to  the  sea. 
Famed  is  the  hill  of  Kinnekulle,  and  who  knows  not  the  forest 
of  Kolmorden?  Uto  is  rich  in  the  ores  of  iron;  copper  is 
found  in  Falu,  and  silver  at  Sala.  There  are  mines  of  mag- 
netite and  hyperite,  of  granulite  and  dolomite.  Among  the 
trees  of  fir  and  pine  the  elk  and  roe  deer  search  for  browsage, 
and  the  fleet-footed  hare  leaps  thru  the  brush.  Droves  of 
leaping  salmon  crowd  the  rivers,  and  the  herrings  swim  from 
the  sea  to  spawn  in  the  shoals.  Over  the  snowy  fields  the 
great-horned  reindeer  wander,  the  whooper  swan  sails  in  the 
lakes  of  Lapland,  and  high  in  the  frosty  air  soars  the  gyrfalcon 
and  the  golden  eagle.  Great  indeed  is  the  spectacle  of  the 
Midnight  Sun,  and  when  the  Aurora  Borealis  flashes  its  danc- 
ing columns  across  the  startled  skies,  the  beholder  stands  with 
reverent  heart  and  uplifted  hand. 

Yet  boast  not  of  these  things,  Sweden.  Huge  kings  have 
sat  on  thine  ancient  throne,  and  hurled  stout  armies  at  the 
frightened  nations.  But  be  not  proud  of  them.  Do  not  sing 
of  the  Olafs  and  Erics,  and  seek  not  to  perpetuate  the  mem- 
ories of  the  vikings  of  old.  We  are  sick  of  the  bloody  sagas 
of  the  skalds,  and  the  fierce  berserkers  who  cried  Was-hael 
among  the  reddish  fiords.  We  have  heard  quite  enough  of 
your  battle-axes,  and  we  close  our  ears  at  the  sound  of  the 


SCHEELE,  THE  APOTHECARY  189 

hammer  of  Thor.     Forget  that  victory  at  Narva,  and  scratch 
out  the  name  of  Charles  XII. 

Sweden,  thou  hast  a  greater  glory.  Thy  name  is  on  the 
lips  of  thinkers,  and  when  the  spirit  of  Science  calls  the  roll 
of  nations  who  have  served  her,  thou  canst  answer  in  a  tri- 
umphant voice,  for  Scheele  is  thy  son. 


(1731-1810) 
CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST 

Cavendish  gave  me  once  some  bits  of  platinum  for  my  experiments,  and 
came  to  see  my  results  on  the  decomposition  of  the  alkalis,  and  seemed 
to  take  an  interest  in  them;  but  he  encouraged  no  intimacy  with  any  one, 
and  received  nobody  at  his  own  house.  ...  He  was  acute,  sagacious, 
and  profound,  and,  I  think,  the  most  accomplished  British  philosopher 
of  his  time. 

—  SIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY. 

I  DEFY  any  biographer  to  write  an  interesting  sketch  of 
Henry  Cavendish.  Some  careers  lack  picturesque  irregulari- 
ties, but  his  was  destitute  of  a  single  episode.  He  never  sowed 
wild  oats  in  the  fields  of  life  —  only  tame  sweet-peas  in  the 
retired  gardens  of  science.  There  was  no  dash  of  reckless- 
ness in  his  make-up.  He  passed  his  youth  without  commit- 
ting an  indiscretion.  The  wings  of  enthusiasm  did  not  grow 
on  his  shoulders. 

Even  in  the  trivial  affairs  of  daily  existence,  Cavendish  had 
a  mania  for  method.  At  the  Royal  Society  he  always  hung 
his  hat  on  the  same  peg;  he  would  never  ride  in  his  carriage 
without  measuring  the  miles ;  every  morning  not  only  were  his 
boots  found  in  a  special  position,  but  the  point  of  his  walking- 
stick  was  always  standing  in  a  particular  way  and  in  the  same 
boot;  at  his  mansion  in  Dean  Street  he  fitted  up  a  valuable 
scientific  library  which  was  at  the  disposal  of  all  research- 
workers,  and  Cavendish  himself  would  never  take  a  book  from 
it  without  signing  a  formal  receipt;  for  dinner  he  had  in- 
variably a  leg  of  mutton:  on  an  unparalleled  occasion,  when 
some  scientists  were  to  dine  with  him,  his  housekeeper  asked 
what  was  to  be  had  for  dinner.  '  A  leg  of  mutton/  said  Cav- 
endish. '  Sir,  that  will  not  be  enough  for  five.'  '  Then  get 
two  legs/  responded  the  charming  host. 

Cavendish  could  have  given  Amos  Bronson  Alcott  lessons 
in  the  simple  life;  he  was  as  frugal  as  a  pastoral  bard,  and 

143 


144  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

no  sodium  urate  enlarged  his  hallux;  in  truth,  he  had  not 
those  disorders  that  require  the  services  of  a  medicus,  nor 
was  his  existence  ever  enlivened  by  a  law-suit,  but  his  patho- 
logic fear  of  the  primate  mammal  was  so  pronounced,  that 
anthropophobia  should  be  popularly  known  as  Cavendish's 
Disease. 

To  meet  a  young  lady  one  night,  and  to  have  his  arm  around 
her  waist  the  next  night, —  this  was  a  pleasing  miracle  which 
he  never  accomplished.  Cavendish  did  not  even  desire  the 
sex.  He  was  the  model  misogynist.  It  is  admitted  he  was 
born  of  a  woman,  but  she  died  when  he  was  two  years  of  age, 
and  he  never  had  a  sister  or  a  female  acquaintance. 

Cavendish,  like  Erasmus,  was  raised  by  his  father,  and 
like  that  wise  monk  who  poked  fun  at  monasteries  and  praised 
only  Folly,  he  might  have  written :  '  Two  parents  are  the 
rule;  no  parents  the  exception;  a  mother  but  no  father  is  not 
uncommon;  but  I  had  a  father  and  never  had  a  mother.  I 
was  nursed  by  a  man,  and  educated  by  monks,  all  of  which 
shows  that  women  are  more  or  less  of  a  superfluity  in  crea- 
tion. God  himself  is  man.  He  had  one  son,  but  no  daugh- 
ters. The  cherubim  are  boys.  All  of  the  angels  are  mascu- 
line, and  so  far  as  Holy  Writ  informs,  there  are  no  women  in 
heaven.' 

But  Erasmus  wrote  the  above  letter  to  a  lady,  a  dissipation 
in  which  Cavendish  did  not  indulge.  Moreover,  Erasmus  had 
a  sense  of  humor,  which  Cavendish  was  minus.  Nature  must 
have  been  confused  when  she  molded  a  sixteenth  century 
monk  more  sociable  than  a  modern  British  chemist.  The  criti- 
cal reader  will  here  discern  that  it  was  not  this  Cavendish 
who  won  fame  as  an  authority  on  whist. 

Such  was  this  man's  aversion  to  women,  that  happening  to 
meet  one  of  his  maid  servants  on  the  steps,  with  a  broom  and 
pail,  he  ordered  a  back  staircase  to  be  built.  At  a  certain 
hour  of  the  day  he  left  a  note  on  the  hall-table  for  his  house- 
keeper to  take  unobserved,  for  any  female  domestic  whom  he 
saw,  he  dismissed. 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  146 

He  did  not  feel  a  tide  of  passion  surge  within  him  in  the 
spring-time.  He  never  succumbed  to  calf-love  or  the  maturer 
variety.  He  formed  an  exception  to  Alice  Lloyd's  declara- 
tion, '  We  all  want  something  to  cuddle.'  He  does  not  re- 
mind us,  unless  by  the  law  of  antithesis,  of  the  young  French 
author  who  confessed  to  Marie  Bashkirtseff,  '  Women  are  my 
passion.' 

In  short,  we  recall  no  other  son  of  Adam  who  lived  so  sex- 
less a  life  as  Cavendish.  It  does  no  good  to  name  professed 
celibates,  for  secret  meetings  between  monks  and  nuns  are  not 
always  fairy-tales,  and  Popes  had  the  habit  of  being  fathers 
not  only  in  a  spiritual  sense.  August  Strindberg  —  a  more 
violent  woman-hater  than  Schopenhauer  himself  —  has  been 
thrice  married.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  who  was  so  engrossed  in 
differential  calculus  that  he  had  no  carnal  knowledge,  might 
have  become  a  husband  if  his  mind  hadn't  wandered  to  the 
realm  of  theory  at  the  moment  he  was  expected  to  woo. 
Amiel,  the  sad  eremite  of  modern  philosophy,  yearned  for 
wedlock.  Herbert  Spencer  probably  would  have  proposed  to 
George  Eliot  if  she  hadn't  run  off  with  the  homeliest  man  in 
London.  Even  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  impotent  tho  they  were, 
took  wives  unto  themselves,  but  if  Cavendish  had  been  shown 
a  bodice,  he  might  have  analyzed  its  constituents,  but  would 
not  have  understood  its  functions. 

Cavendish's  relation  to  males  was  scarcely  more  intimate. 
It  is  fortunate  circumstances  never  compelled  him  to  perform 
that  little  conventionality  called  '  making  a  living.'  There  is 
nothing  like  travel  to  make  a  man  reminiscent,  and  during 
1785  and  three  other  years,  Cavendish  journeyed  thru  the 
greater  part  of  the  island  for  geological  and  meteorological 
purposes.  In  his  written  record,  not  a  single  personal  inci- 
dent is  related:  only  the  heights  that  the  barometer  deter- 
mined, and  the  strata  that  the  hammer  explored.  Of  the 
people  he  met  by  the  way,  of  the  wild  scenery  of  Wales,  there 
is  no  account.  At  Birmingham,  Watt  himself  explained  to 
Cavendish  his  improvements  of  the  steam-engine.  In  his  MS 


146  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Journal,  Cavendish  wrote,  '  Mr  Watt  thinks  to  have  ascer- 
tained by  experiment,  that  the  less  heat  water  is  converted  into 
steam  with,  the  more  latent  heat  it  requires,  to  assume  the 
elastic  form,'  but  how  the  great  engineer  looked,  or  how  he 
spoke,  Cavendish  does  not  say. 

Nor  was  Cavendish  concerned  with  political  affairs.  He 
lived  in  the  days  of  1776,  when  John  Hancock  wrote  his  sig- 
nature large  enough  for  England's  king  to  read  without  his 
spectacles,  but  Cavendish  did  not  bother  a  rush  whether  the 
thirteen  colonies  along  the  Atlantic  coast  were  ruled  by 
George  III  or  by  George  Washington. 

The  Ancient  Mariner  was  alone  on  a  wide  sea;  but  Caven- 
dish was  alone  in  London.  He  had  no  friends,  and  rarely 
met  a  relative :  his  chief  heir  came  to  him  but  once  a  year  and 
seldom  stayed  half  an  hour.  No  voice  called  him  Harry. 
There  are  few  lips  which  at  some  time  or  other  have  not 
spoken  the  familiar  phrase,  '  I  love  you,'  but  it  is  doubtful  if 
Cavendish  ever  said  as  much  to  anyone  as,  *  I'm  glad  to  see 
you.' 

Had  Cavendish  not  dined  at  the  Royal  Society,  or  attended 
the  conversaziones  of  Sir  Joseph  Banks,  he  would  have  been 
a  myth.  Saint  Catherine  vowed  not  to  open  her  mouth  for 
nine  years,  but  Cavendish  uttered  fewer  words  in  the  course 
of  his  life  than  any  human  being  on  record,  except  those  who 
are  born  dumb.  In  truth,  the  tongue  to  him  was  an  unneces- 
sary organ,  even  as  to  the  Trappist  whose  vow  includes  per- 
petual silence. 

Because  a  man  is  shy  and  solitary  does  not  imply  he  is  a 
misanthrope.  A  certain  type  of  recluse  is  often  intensely  eager 
for  sympathy  and  companionship.  But  they  are  sensitive 
souls,  afraid  of  being  misunderstood  by  grosser  grain.  Their 
reserve  is  a  mask  which  they  wear,  and  put  on  like  furs  in  De- 
cember —  for  protection  against  the  cold.  These  hermits 
come  out  of  their  retirement  when  the  right  person  appears, 
and  they  then  exhibit  a  depth  of  feeling  of  which  others 
deemed  them  incapable.  The  bashful  Hawthorne,  for  ex- 


147 

ample,  found  such  a  person  in  Sophia  Peabody,  for  woman  by 
virtue  of  her  intuitive  instinct  is  especially  fitted  to  penetrate 
the  barrier  of  reticence,  and  view  what  lies  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  apparent  indifference.  Yet  it  is  extremely  improbable 
that  anything  of  the  sort  could  ever  have  occurred  to  the  bi- 
zarre chemist  under  consideration.  Cavendish  really  seems 
to  have  been  an  iceberg  in  breeches  which  no  warmth  could 
melt.  If  man  is  a  social  animal,  then  Cavendish  did  not  be- 
long to  the  genus  homo. 

Amid  the  acclamation  of  the  Romans,  Terence  exclaimed, 
*  Nothing  that  is  human  is  alien  to  me,'  but  Cavendish  re- 
versed this  maxim.  He  would  not  have  been  a  member  of 
Walt  Whitman's  Institution  of  the  Dear  Love  of  Comrades. 
He  could  not  have  appreciated  Richard  Burton's  sentiment : 

High  thoughts  and  noble  in  all  lands 
Help  me.    My  soul  is  fed  by  such; 
But  ah,  the  touch  of  lips  and  hands, 
The  human  touch! 

<        Warm,  vital,  close,  life's  symbols  dear, 
These  need  I  most,  and  now  and  here. 

We  who  grieve  at  the  parting  friend,  and  await  his  coming 
with  joy,  we  who  are  met  at  the  threshold  of  home,  when  the 
work  of  the  day  is  over,  with  words  of  welcome,  may  shudder 
at  the  loneliness  of  Cavendish's  life,  and  wonder  if  sometimes 
in  the  long  night,  as  he  walked  thru  empty  rooms,  encounter- 
ing nothing  more  cheerful  than  a  graduated  jar  or  a  metallic 
eudiometer,  there  did  not  vaguely  gnaw  at  his  heart  the  desire 
to  see  outlined  against  the  smoldering  fireside,  a  human  form. 
On  second  reflection  the  thought  is  a  vain  one,  for  if  Caven- 
dish wished  such  society  he  could  have  called  up  his  female 
servants  and  treated  them  to  wine,  as  Ibsen's  Chamberlain 
Alving  used  to  do,  but  there  is  more  blasphemy  in  this  con- 
ception than  in  Edward  McGlynn's  idea  of  the  Pope  walking 
down  Broadway  with  a  plug  hat  on  his  head  and  a  good  cigar 
in  his  mouth. 


148  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Infrequently  as  Cavendish  showed  himself  to  his  fellow- 
men,  he  sometimes  underwent  terrifying  experiences  in  their 
company  which  must  have  caused  him  to  vow  to  eschew  even 
the  dinners  of  the  Royal  Society  and  the  soirees  of  Sir  Joseph. 

One  evening,  while  the  Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society  were 
at  supper,  a  pretty  face  watched  them  from  an  upper  window 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street.  Suddenly  a  learned  Fellow 
lost  interest  in  Lavoisier's  views  on  combustion,  and  ap- 
proached nearer  the  peeping  beauty.  One  by  one  the  phi- 
losophers left  the  table  and  concentrated  around  the  window, 
thus  proving  Edward  Clodd's  contention,  '  Emotionally,  we 
are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  old;  rationally,  we  are 
embryos.'  Cavendish  naturally  thought  the  F.  R.  S.'s  were 
studying  the  moon,  but  he  mistook  the  planet.  When  he  him- 
self came  to  the  spot  and  saw  what  his  colleagues  were  observ- 
ing, he  turned  away  in  the  deepest  disgust,  audibly  grunting 
his  disapproval,  for  he  was  not  a  poet  and  did  not  believe  that 
astronomy  could  be  istudied  in  a  lady's  starry  eyes. 

On  the  occasion  of  a  gathering  at  Sir  Joseph  Banks',  Dr 
Ingenhousz  formally  introduced  a  foreign  friend  to  Caven- 
dish, explaining  how  anxious  he  was  to  meet  such  a  profound 
and  celebrated  thinker.  Dr  Ingenhousz's  friend  then  assured 
Cavendish  that  he  had  come  all  the  way  from  Austria  princi- 
pally to  see  and  speak  with  one  of  the  greatest  ornaments  of 
the  age.  As  far  as  conversing  with  Cavendish  went,  the  coun- 
tryman of  Marcus  Plenciz  might  have  remained  in  the  Tyrol, 
for  Cavendish  answered  never  a  word.  The  unhappy  object 
of  admiration  had  seen  what  was  to  him  the  horror  of  hor- 
rors—  a  strange  face.  Stricken  with  anthropophobia  he 
stood  there,  with  eyes  cast  down,  in  an  agony  of  embarrass- 
ment, till  he  saw  an  opening  in  the  crowd  and  darted  away  in 
a  manner  that  recalled  Newton's  first  law  of  motion :  '  A 
body  in  motion  moves  uniformly  in  a  straight  line  unless  acted 
upon  by  some  outside  force.' 

A  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  informed  Charles  Tomlin- 
son,  who  was  collecting  material  for  Dr  George  Wilson's  Life 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  149 

of  Cavendish,  '  I  have  myself  seen  Cavendish  stand  a  long  time 
on  the  landing,  evidently  wanting  courage  to  open  the  door 
and  face  the  people  assembled,  nor  would  he  open  the  door 
until  he  heard  some  one  coming  up  the  stairs,  and  then  he  was 
forced  to  enter.' 

Then  he  came  slouching  along,  uncanny  in  his  awkward- 
ness, with  one  hand  behind  his  back,  looking  neither  to  right 
nor  left,  shuffling  quickly  and  yet  with  hesitation,  utter- 
ing a  shrill  cry  if  watched ;  the  oddest  figure  of  them  all,  dress- 
ing in  old-fashioned  gear:  cocked  hat,  high  coat  collar, 
frilled  shirtwaist,  faded  violet  clothes,  knocker-tailed 
periwig. 

When  some  unusual  occasion  caused  him  to  make  use  of  his 
vocal  chords,  his  voice  was  found  to  be  squeaky,  like  a  pulley 
that  has  not  been  recently  used.  The  new  Fellows  found  it 
expedient  to  follow  Dr  Wollaston's  advice,  '  The  best  way  to 
talk  to  Cavendish  is  never  to  look  at  him,  but  to  talk  as  if  it 
Were  into  vacancy,  and  then  it  is  not  unlikely  but  you  may 
set  him  going.' 

Kerseboom  painted  Boyle,  Fuseli  painted  Priestley,  Faulk- 
ner painted  Dalton,  Sandberg  painted  Berzelius,  Lawrence 
painted  Davy,  but  no  brother  of  the  tribe  of  Joshua  Reynolds 
could  induce  Cavendish  to  enter  his  studio. 

Cavendish  never  imagined  that  his  lineaments  would  descend 
to  posterity,  but  an  adventurous  artist  named  Alexander,  man- 
aged at  a  scientific  meeting  to  sketch  him  surreptitiously,  and 
the  drawing  is  now  preserved  in  the  print  room  of  the  British 
Museum,  for  all  the  world  to  gaze  upon. 

But  not  even  his  suburban  villa  at  Clapham  Common, — 
where  grew  a  large  tree  which  he  ascended  for  his  electrical 
and  astronomical  studies  —  was  always  safe  from  the  in- 
trusion of  outsiders.  Indeed,  one  day  Cavendish  was  fright- 
ened to  hear  the  voice  of  his  servant,  '  Sir,  there  is  a  person 
below  who  wants  to  speak  to  you.' 

'  Who  is  he?     Who  is  he?    What  does  he  want  with  me?  ' 

'  He  says  he  is  your  banker  and  must  speak  to  you.' 


150  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

'  Send  him  up.  Send  him  up.  ...  What  you  come 
here  for?  What  do  you  want  with  me? ' 

'  Sir/  replied  the  borrower  and  lender  of  currency,  *  I 
thought  it  proper  to  wait  upon  you,  as  we  have  a  very  large 
balance  in  hand  of  yours,  and  wish  for  your  orders  respecting 
it/ 

'  If  it  is  any  trouble  to  you,  I  will  take  it  out  of  your  hands. 
Do  not  come  here  to  plague  me.' 

'  Not  in  the  least  trouble  to  us,  Sir,  not  in  the  least ;  but  we 
thought  you  might  like  some  of  it  invested.' 

'  Well !  Well !     What  do  you  want  to  do?  ' 

'  Perhaps  you  would  like  half  of  it,  say,  forty  thousand 
pounds,  invested.' 

'  Do  so !  Do  so !  and  don't  come  here  to  trouble  me,  or  I 
will  remove  it.' 

This  ungracious  man,  who  never  had  more  than  one  suit 
of  clothes  at  a  time,  was  not  a  country  bumpkin  raised  in  a 
village.  He  was  a  lord  and  a  millionaire,  the  most  high-born 
chemist  that  Britain  has  produced.  Heredity  forgot,  how- 
ever, that  one  of  his  forefathers  was  Thomas  Cavendish,  the 
daring  freebooter  who  circumnavigated  the  globe,  burning  and 
robbing  Spanish  ships  on  the  watery  way,  and  came  sailing 
home  with  a  crew  clothed  in  silk,  sails  of  damask,  and  a  top- 
mast covered  with  a  cloth  of  gold.  The  house  of  Cavendish 
had  long  been  illustrious:  when  a  Cavendish  died  his  corpse 
was  met  at  the  entrance  of  the  town  by  the  mayor  and  thirty 
burgesses  in  mourning.  Henry  Cavendish  was  the  grandson 
of  a  duke  by  both  parents,  and  the  nephew  and  the  cousin  of 
one.  He  traced  his  descent  back  to  a  Norman  family  famous 
in  the  days  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  his  ancestors  were 
connected  by  intermarriage  not  only  with  high  aristocracy, 
but  with  the  royal  families  of  England  and  Scotland.  But 
certainly  our  Cavendish  had  no  interest  in  his  Norman  pedi- 
gree; it  is  bad  enough  that  Lord  Byron  did.  Cavendish  kept 
no  coat-of-arms,  but  he  adopted  this  motto:  '  Let  me  alone.' 

We  frequently  observe  that  a  human  being  who  separates 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  151 

himself,  or  is  cut  off  from  his  fellow-creatures,  seeks  solace 
in  the  healing  powers  of  nature. 

There  is  a  pleasure  in  the  pathless  woods, 
There  is  a  rapture  on  the  lonely  shore, 
There  is  society  where  none  intrudes. 
By  the  deep  Sea,  and  music  in  its  roar. 

The  most  ungregarious  of  American  authors,  who  said  he 
would  rather  sit  on  a  pumpkin  and  have  it  all  to  himself  than 
be  crowded  on  a  velvet  cushion,  lived  alone  in  the  woods,  for 
he  was  in  love  with  a  beautiful  pond.  When  the  brilliant  and 
broken  outcast  of  British  literature  languished  in  cell  3.3, 
he  did  not  think  on  his  release  to  find  a  home  among  the 
haunts  of  men,  but  wrote  from  the  depths,  *  Society  will  have 
no  place  for  me,  has  none  to  offer,  but  Nature,  whose  sweet 
rains  fall  on  unjust  and  just  alike,  will  have  clefts  in  the  rocks 
where  I  may  hide,  and  secret  valleys  in  whose  silence  I  may 
weep  undisturbed.  She  will  hang  the  night  with  stars  so  that 
I  may  walk  abroad  in  the  darkness  without  stumbling,  and 
send  the  wind  over  my  footprints  so  that  none  may  track  me 
to  my  hurt :  she  will  cleanse  me  in  great  waters,  and  with  bitter 
herbs  make  me  whole.' 

But  Cavendish  was  as  indifferent  to  nature  as  to  man.  He 
could  not  declaim  with  Manfred : 

I  linger  yet  with  Nature,  for  the  night 
Hath  been  to  me  a  more  familiar  face 
Than  that  of  man;  and  in  her  starry  shade 
Of  dim  and  solitary  loveliness, 
I  learn'd  the  language  of  another  world. 

Cavendish  never  slept  under  the  stars,  or  swore  that  only 
the  clouds  are  real.  The  monarch  of  mountains,  crowned 
with  a  diadem  of  snow,  furnished  him  no  inspiration.  He 
never  saw  tears  in  the  drooping  eyes  of  the  modest  violet. 
The  cowslip's  chalice  held  no  gold  for  this  chemist.  He  did 
not  muse  on  the  circumstance  that  each  blade  of  grass,  tho 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

useless  in  its  isolation,  helps  to  form  the  green  mantle  that 
covers  the  bare  shoulders  of  Mother  Earth.  The  tints  of 
morning,  when  the  young  sun  rises  in  splendor  to  illumine 
a  universe,  never  stirred  his  primitive  instincts.  The  mur- 
muring waters  and  the  distant  hills,  that  make  orators  elo- 
quent and  young  girls  sentimental,  were  only  bosh  to  him. 
The  wan  and  melancholy  moon  that  causes  youths  and  maidens 
gay  to  exchange  tender  vows,  never  affected  the  systole  and 
diastole  of  his  cardiac  region.  He  walked  out  in  the  dusk 
after  the  twilight,  not  to  hear  the  notes  of  philomel,  but  to 
escape  the  gaze  of  man.  Blind  to  beauty  and  deaf  to  melody 
was  this  individual.  No  wonder  his  biographers  Cuvier, 
Thomson,  Kopp,  forgot  he  was  born  in  Italy  —  where  his 
mother  had  gone  for  the  benefit  of  the  waters.  The  words 
sublime  and  beautiful  were  not  in  his  vocabulary —  so  he  could 
not  have  written  Burke' s  essay.  His  lack  of  the  esthetic 
sense  could  be  observed  in  his  laboratory,  for  he  never  cared 
how  ugly  his  apparatus  looked,  so  long  as  it  was  as  accurate 
as  possible.  In  his  dry  soul,  there  was  not  an  atom  of  the 
artist.  He  did  not  even  see  the  poetry  of  physics. 

And  to  think  that  only  a  stroll  from  his  Clapham  villa  lived 
Blake  the  esthete,  going  mad  with  dreams  of  color,  piping  him- 
self into  paradise  with  gorgeous  phrase. 

Voltaire  said,  '  When  a  woman  is  no  longer  acceptable  to 
man,  she  turns  to  God,'  but  this  cutting  sarcasm,  like  most 
androcentric  epigrams,  equally  fits  the  sterner  sex.  Half  the 
decadent  poets,  rejected  of  men,  died  in  the  numbing  arms 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  Did  Cavendish  turn  to  Jesus  Christ 
for  comfort?  He  did  not;  he  never  attended  a  place  of  wor- 
ship, and  had  no  religion.  It  is  thought  he  left  Cambridge 
without  a  diploma,  because  he  did  not  care  to  submit  to  the 
theologic  red-tape  required  of  all  candidates  for  degrees.  Evi- 
dently, he  was  unwilling  to  argue  about  Eve's  serpent,  Elijah's 
sparrows,  Jonah's  whale,  or  Balaam's  ass.  During  his  geo- 
logical trips  he  used  his  chisel  every  day  in  the  week,  and 
some  of  his  most  important  discoveries  in  chemistry  were 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  158 

made  on  Sunday.  Shall  we  therefore  say  he  violated  the  com- 
mandment, '  Remember  the  Sabbath  day  to  keep  it  holy  ?  ' 
Shall  we  not  rather  demand  wherein  is  it  unholy  to  add  to  the 
treasure-house  of  Science? 

Theologically  speaking,  Cavendish  lived  in  a  backward  age 
—  the  age  in  which  the  fanatical  Autocrat  of  English  Litera- 
ture cast  a  slur  on  every  liberal  thinker  in  Europe,  while 
the  priggish  Boswell  stood  by,  clapping  his  little  hands  in  glee. 
Johnson  would  remain  on  his  knees  in  prayer  for  hours  at  a 
time  —  except  when  he  had  previously  taken  a  dose  of  squill. 

Cavendish's  unbelief  was  both  remarkable  and  refreshing, 
for  of  all  people  in  the  world  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  the  most 
offensively  pious.  For  example,  when  Captain  Cook  was 
about  to  make  his  second  voyage  around  the  world,  the  dis- 
coverer of  nitrous  oxide  was  invited  to  accompany  the  expedi- 
tion in  the  capacity  of  naturalist.  Priestley  agreed  to  the 
proposition,  and  already  had  visions  of  strange  stars  and 
savages,  but  he  was  rejected  by  the  clerical  members  of  the 
Board  of  Longitude,  not  because  he  was  deemed  ignorant  of 
science,  but  because  he  was  unable  to  feel  himself  entangled  in 
Adam's  guilt. 

The  same  generation  that  saw  an  infuriated  mob  break  into 
Priestley's  home  at  Birmingham,  tear  his  manuscripts  into 
shreds,  destroy  his  electrical  apparatus,  and  smash  the  earthen- 
ware that  Josiah  Wedgwood  sent  him,  witnessed  all  Paris 
entertaining  David  Hume  —  the  skeptic  whose  pen  scratched 
the  word  '  miracle  '  from  the  domain  of  truth. 

So  Cavendish  existed:  without  affection  for  Man,  without 
interest  in  God,  without  belief  in  Satan;  and  when  he  passed 
out  of  the  world,  almost  in  his  eightieth  year,  no  one  was  at 
his  bedside :  no  heir,  servant  or  scientific  acquaintance ;  neither 
doctor,  lawyer  nor  priest, —  not  even  a  faithful  heart-broken 
dog.  Buddha  would  have  hailed  Henry  Cavendish  the  great- 
est of  Occidentals  —  he  had  no  desires. 

Thus  far,  this  has  been  a  narrative  in  the  negative.     We 


154  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

have  overused  *  not '  and  '  never ' ;  Cavendish  was  not  this, 
and  Cavendish  never  did  that.  But  Cavendish  must  have 
been  something,  for  altho  he  dreaded  the  loud  hand  of  ap- 
plause and  quivered  at  the  glaring  eye  of  notoriety,  his  mem- 
ory has  survived  the  vicissitudes  of  a  century,  while  millions 
of  men  who  fought  for  fame  have  dropped  into  forgotten 
graves. 

Eminent  as  Cavendish  was  in  his  day,  he  would  have  been 
more  celebrated  had  he  possessed  any  desire  for  distinction. 
But  his  place  in  chemistry  is  analogous  to  that  of  Edward 
Fitzgerald  in  poetry,  who  made  '  efforts  to  remain  within  the 
shadow  of  anonymity.'  A  number  of  Cavendish's  papers 
were  published  in  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  but  often  he 
would  perform  a  series  of  experiments,  write  out  the  results, 
and  then  put  the  MS  away;  twenty  years  later  he  might  pub- 
lish it,  as  he  did  his  Experiments  on  Heat,  or  he  might  leave  it 
unpublished  as  he  left  his  Density  of  the  Atmosphere  of  the 
Earth  and  of  Jupiter.  The  unfortunate  result  of  this  habit 
was  that  scientific  men  would  have  to  spend  considerable  time 
making  obtruse  researches  with  which  Cavendish  was  already 
familiar. 

For  instance,  Michael  Faraday  had  to  discover  for  himself 
the  difference  of  the  capacities  of  various  substances  for  tak- 
ing part  in  electric  induction,  but  had  he  been  permitted  to 
peer  into  Cavendish's  drawer,  he  would  have  learnt  that  that 
owlish  individual  had  not  only  discovered  that  rosin,  shellac, 
wax  and  glass  have  higher  specific  inductive  properties  than 
air,  but  had  even  determined  the  numerical  ratios  of  each. 
Biot  also  added  a  new  wrinkle  to  his  forehead  pondering  over 
problems  which  Cavendish  had  previously  solved.  Even 
Volta,  after  whom  we  have  named  an  entire  department  of 
electricity,  was  forced  to  make  experiments  to  which  Caven- 
dish already  knew  the  answer. 

The  mind  balks  at  Cavendish's  unconcern  for  laurels:  re- 
searches which  would  have  established  a  deathless  reputation, 
electrical  memoirs  which  Clerk  Maxwell  has  been  glad  to 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  155 

edit,  were  never  sent  by  their  author  to  a  printer.  How  op- 
posite from  the  lively  Priestley,  whose  manuscripts  would  be 
put  into  pica  before  the  concluding  paragraph  was  blotted  and 
dried.  But  Cavendish  could  not  escape  immortality:  he  who 
does  superb  work  is  in  danger  of  being  remembered. 

Cavendish  was  a  natural  philosopher:  master  of  several 
branches  of  science.  We  write  of  him  chiefly  as  Cavendish 
the  Chemist,  but  another  could  call  his  essay  Cavendish  the 
Electrician;  a  third  could  tell  of  Cavendish  the  Mathema- 
tician; a  fourth  could  speak  of  him  as  Cavendish  the  Meteor- 
ologist; a  fifth  could  describe  Cavendish  the  Geologist;  and  a 
sixth  could  fill  a  paper  on  Cavendish  the  Astronomer. 

We  have  few  such  men  nowadays,  because  each  separate 
part  of  each  different  branch  of  science  has  developed  so 
enormously,  that  Specialization  is  necessarily  the  cry  of  our 
age.  The  German  professor  who  spends  twelve  years  tic- 
kling the  roots  of  plants,  and  writes  three  weighty  tomes  on 
the  theme,  is  undoubtedly  an  expert  on  certain  botanical  prob- 
lems, but  he  can  know  only  enough  zoology  to  distinguish  a 
zebra  from  a  kangaroo. 

We  gladly  turn  from  the  pitiful  picture  of  Cavendish  in  so- 
ciety, to  the  nobler  one  of  Cavendish  in  his  laboratory.  Un- 
disturbed by  others,  he  performed  his  experiments  with  a 
patience  that  never  tired,  and  an  accuracy  that  has  been  the 
marvel  of  succeeding  ages.  His  great  merit  lies  in  the  fact 
that  so  much  of  his  work  was  quantitative  as  well  as  qualita- 
tive. The  name  of  Cavendish  is  a  synonym  for  exactitude. 

This  does  not  mean  that  he  made  no  mistakes,  for  the  sponge 
of  science  has  erased  more  than  one  of  his  conclusions.  Most 
of  his  blunders  were  due  to  his  adherence  to  the  phlogistic 
doctrine.  This  theory  of  Becher  and  Stahl's,  that  every  com- 
bustible substance  contains  a  constituent  given  up  in  burning, 
called  phlogiston, —  from  the  Greek  word  phlogistos,  meaning 
inflammable  —  has  now  vanished  as  completely  as  Kunckel's 
notion  that  every  metal  contains  quicksilver,  but  in  its  day 
it  worked  much  havoc. 


156  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Phlogiston  was  indeed  the  will-of4he-wisp  of  chemistry 
which  confused  Priestley,  puzzled  Watt,  upset  Boerhaave,  de- 
ceived the  wise  Scheele,  lured  Kirwan  on  to  error,  and  often 
led  Cavendish  astray. 

Chemistry  can  never  be  too  grateful  to  Lavoisier  —  plagiar- 
ist tho  he  was  on  at  least  two  occasions,  trying  to  steal  the  dis- 
covery of  oxygen  from  Priestley,  and  the  discovery  of  the 
composition  of  water  from  Cavendish, —  chemistry,  we  say, 
can  never  be  thankful  enough  to  the  illustrious  French  savant 
for  exposing  the  fallacy  of  phlogiston.  Out  of  the  whole 
phlogistic  jargon,  only  a  single  word  survives  in  modern 
chemical  nomenclature:  eudiometer. 

Among  Cavendish's  early  experiments  was  an  investigation 
of  the  properties  of  arsenic,  by  which  he  learnt  that  arsenical 
acid  contains  more  oxygen  than  does  arsenious,  and  the  lat- 
ter more  than  the  metal. 

He  introduced  the  word  '  equivalent '  into  chemistry,  and 
proved  that  the  combining  proportion  between  base  and  acid 
follows  a  distinct  law. 

He  analyzed  the  Rathbone  Place  water,  thus  making  one 
of  the  earliest  satisfactory  analyses  of  a  mineral  water;  he 
was  the  first  to  explain  what  is  known  as  the  hardness  of 
water;  he  showed  the  solubility  of  bicarbonates  of  lime  and 
magnesia  in  water. 

He  was  selected  by  the  Royal  Society  to  describe  their 
meteorological  instruments,  and  Cavendish  did  not  disappoint 
the  Fellows  by  his  account  of  the  rain-gauge,  hygrometer, 
variation-compass  and  dipping-needle.  It  should  be  remarked 
that  his  father,  Lord  Charles  Cavendish,  was  a  meteorologist 
of  distinction. 

No  one  could  graduate  thermometers  with  such  skill  as 
Cavendish ;  he  was  always  fortunate  where  mercury  was  con- 
cerned; he  and  Priestley  initiated  the  method  of  using  quick- 
silver to  collect  and  preserve  certain  gases  which  are  ab- 
sorbed by  water. 

Rutherford  is  usually  regarded  as  the  discoverer  of  nitro- 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  157 

gen,  but  Cavendish,  like  Scheele  of  Sweden,  was  an  independ- 
ent finder  of  the  inert  element,  and  wrote  the  first  clear  de- 
scription of  it  as  a  distinct  gas. 

He  gave  the  best  account  of  carbonic  acid  and  the  carbon- 
ates; he  knew  that  cold  water  dissolves  more  carbon  dioxide 
than  hot.  It  is  safe  to  say,  however,  that  he  never  guessed 
how  important  a  part  carbonic  acid  gas  would  play  in  the  great 
American  beverage,  nor  how  often  the  enamored  swain  would 
inquire  of  his  perspiring  affinity,  '  Will  you  have  a  glass  of 
soda-water  ? ' 

Cavendish  found  that  a  solution  of  one  part  of  salt  in  one 
part  of  water  conducts  a  current  100  times  better  than  fresh 
water,  and  that  a  saturated  solution  of  sea-salt  is  720  times  as 
efficient.  '  Among  the  cultivators  of  electricity,'  says  Pro- 
fessor Chrystal,  '  Henry  Cavendish  is  entitled  to  a  distin- 
guished place.' 

The  value  of  his  researches  on  the  nature  of  heat  was  sec- 
ond only  to  those  of  Dr  Black.  He  was  probably  the  first  who 
collected  tables  of  specific  heats  of  various  bodies,  for  Caven- 
dish revelled  in  figures  like  a  poet  wallows  in  adjectives. 

For  an  example  of  his  circumspection,  we  may  quote  a 
passage  from  Dr  Wilson :  '  We  find  Cavendish  collecting 
the  elastic  fluids  on  which  he  experimented,  with  various  pre- 
cautions to  secure  their  purity,  observing  carefully  from  how 
many  different  sources  they  could  be  procured  with  identical 
properties,  and  determining  with  numerical  precision  the  rela- 
tive volumes  yielded  by  different  processes.  The  questions  of 
their  permanent  elasticity,  their  solubility  in  different  liquids, 
their  combustibility  or  power  to  support  combustion,  their 
specific  gravity,  and  likewise  their  combining  equivalent,  were 
all  carefully  inquired  into.' 

During  the  winter  of  1759,  Professor  Braun  was  at  St 
Petersburg,  and  when  the  Russian  chill  sent  the  quicksilver 
34°  below  Fahrenheit's  zero,  the  Professor  stuck  his  ther- 
mometer into  a  freezing  mixture  of  snow  and  nitric  acid.  Im- 
mediately the  hydrargyrum  descended  with  great  rapidity,  and 


158 

after  adding  fresh  supplies  of  the  freezing  mixture,  Braun 
watched  the  mercury  fall  as  low  as  -  352°.  He  then  re- 
moved the  thermometer,  breaking  the  bulb,  and  his  astonished 
eyes  saw  what  had  never  been  seen  before:  solid  mercury. 
Instead  of  an  eternal  fluid,  he  had  before  him  a  metallic  mass 
which  could  be  hammered  like  lead. 

'  So  mercury  can  solidify,'  correctly  quoted  the  surprised 
Professor  as  he  blew  on  his  frost -nipped  fingers,  but  he  forgot 
to  take  into  account  the  phenomenon  that  mercury  contracts, 
becomes  denser  and  therefore  sinks  when  congealed,  and  he 
accordingly  promulgated  a  grave  error :  that  the  freezing  point 
of  mercury  is  about  four  hundred  degrees  below  Fahrenheit's 
zero. 

Some  years  later,  at  the  request  of  the  Royal  Society,  Gov- 
ernor Hutchins  at  Fort  Albany,  Hudson's  Bay,  repeated  this 
experiment,  and  confirmed  the  result.  But  Hutchins  could 
not  determine,  even  approximately,  the  point  at  which  mer- 
cury passes  from  the  liquid  to  the  solid  state,  for  when  the 
mercury  is  enclosed  in  the  thermometer  it  is  impossible  to  see 
how  much  of  the  contraction  is  due  to  cooling  and  how  much 
to  congelation. 

Cavendish,  however,  understood  the  true  nature  of  con- 
gelation, and  —  like  Black  —  knew  from  experiment  that  when 
a  liquid  is  undergoing  solidification,  its  temperature,  after  it 
first  begins  to  freeze,  remains  stationary  until  it  is  entirely 
frozen.  With  this  principle  in  mind  he  constructed  an  ap- 
paratus which  was  sent  to  Hudson's  Bay.  By  employing  it, 
the  Governor  learnt  that  the  congelation  point  of  quicksilver  is 
only  -  39°,  and  that  its  rapid  descent  thru  several  hundred 
degrees,  which  Braun  and  he  himself  had  observed,  proceeded 
merely  from  the  contraction  which  the  mercury  underwent 
in  the  act  of  freezing,  and  not  from  the  degree  of  cold  pro- 
duced. 

Cavendish  deserves  much  credit  for  saving  scientific  men 
from  the  absurdity  of  accepting  fantastic  notions  of  tempera- 
ture. 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  159 

His  naval  ancestor,  whom  we  have  previously  mentioned, 
was  the  third  man  who  sailed  around  the  world;  he  himself 
was  the  first  who  weighed  our  terrestrial  home.  He  performed 
the  experiment  by  means  of  the  torsion  balance  which  had 
been  invented  by  John  Mitchell,  a  gentleman  who  would  have 
been  his  friend,  had  Cavendish  been  able  to  respond.  Out 
of  the  endless  number  of  experiments  that  have  been  per- 
formed in  science,  only  a  few  have  become  phrases  and  passed 
into  technical  literature  with  their  author's  name  prefixed; 
for  instance,  Torricelli's  Experiment,  Oersted's  Experiment, 
Scheiner's  Experiment,  and  Cavendish's  Experiment.  Just 
as  the  first  is  invariably  known  to  refer  to  the  discovery  of  the 
principle  of  the  mercurial  barometer,  the  second  to  signify  a 
phase  of  electromagnetism,  a  third  to  mean  a  phenomenon  in 
vision,  so  the  fourth  alludes  to  the  density  of  the  earth.  Cav- 
endish's Experiment  is  outlined  in  the  majority  of  elemen- 
tary text-books  on  the  science  of  energy,  but  I  will  not  use 
Macaulay's  favorite  expression,  '  every  schoolboy  knows/  be- 
cause I  have  gone  to  school,  and  I  know  that  every  schoolboy 
forgets. 

Yet  the  most  retentive  of  us  may  have  a  dim  recollection 
that  in  Daniell's  Principles  of  Physics,  we  had  to  study  an  ac- 
count of  Cavendish's  Experiment  which  read  somewhat  as 
follows :  '  This  was  a  direct  measurement  of  the  attraction 
of  masses  for  one  another.  Light  balls  were  poised  on  a  rod 
and  their  position  carefully  noted;  large  balls  of  lead  were 
carefully  brought  near  them ;  the  light  balls  were  attracted  by 
the  heavy  masses,  and  their  displacement  measured.  Great 
experimental  precautions  were  necessary,  such  as  the  observa- 
tion of  the  position  of  the  balls  with  a  telescope  placed  at  a 
distance,  the  avoidance  of  draughts  of  air  and  of  vibrations; 
the  result  showed  that  if  lead  balls  had  been  employed  as  large 
as  the  earth,  the  attraction  of  such  balls  would  have 
been  greater  than  the  actual  attraction  of  the  earth  in  the 
ratio  of  11.35  *°  5-6?;  but  lead  is  11.35  times  as  heavy  as 
water,  hence  the  earth  as  a  whole  is  5.67  times  as  heavy  as 


160 

an  equal  bulk  of  water;  or  the  density  of  the  earth  is  5.67.' 

He  analyzed  the  atmosphere,  his  estimation  of  the  mean 
composition  of  air  in  100  parts  by  measure,  being  oxygen  20.8 
and  nitrogen  79.2.  According  to  the  modern  computation  the 
ratios  are  oxygen  20.9  and  nitrogen  79.1. 

Cavendish  guessed  the  existence  of  another  gas  in  the  at- 
mosphere, and  even  surmised  its  amount.  One  hundred  and 
ten  years  later,  two  skillful  English  scientists  —  by  an  inter- 
esting coincidence  working  near  the  house  where  Cavendish 
had  lived  —  repeated  Cavendish's  experiments,  and  learnt  that 
the  nitrogen  obtained  from  the  air  was  a  half  per  cent,  heavier 
than  the  nitrogen  procured  from  chemical  compounds,  such 
as  nitrous  oxide,  nitric  oxide,  ammonium  nitrate.  A  closer 
investigation  of  this  phenomenon  led  to  the  discovery  of  argon 
in  the  air.  So  we  see  that  Lord  Rayleigh  and  Sir  William 
Ramsay  found  and  proved  what  Cavendish  had  only  prophe- 
sied, but  they  had  at  their  service  means  of  absorbing  nitro- 
gen, methods  for  liquefying  air,  and  above  all,  spectrum  analy- 
sis. That  is  why  a  couple  of  bubbles  in  a  capillary  tube  opened 
a  new  era  in  theoretical  chemistry. 

Cavendish  was  not  exactly  the  first  who  investigated  the 
specific  gravity  of  gases,  but  he  was  the  first  who  ascertained 
that  they  have  different  densities.  His  specific  gravity  for 
carbon  dioxide  was  1.57;  ours  is  1.524:  admirable  precision 
for  a  chemist  whose  apparatus  we  would  relegate  to  a  museum 
of  antiquities. 

Hydrogen  had  been  casually  noticed  by  Paracelsus,  Boyle, 
Mayow;  and  indeed,  many  experimentalists  who  had  thrown 
acids  on  metals  had  seen  a  gas  rise,  but  Cavendish  is  con- 
sidered the  discoverer  of  the  lightest  substance  known,  because 
he  made  the  first  investigation  and  wrote  the  first  distinct 
account  of  its  properties.  It  is  fitting  that  Cavendish  should 
have  described  hydrogen,  for  the  gas  is  symbolical  of  its  dis- 
coverer—  having  little  desire  to  unite  with  anything  else, 
being  invisible,  and  trying  to  escape  when  confined. 

He  found  hydrogen   n   times  lighter  than  common  air; 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  161 

we  now  know  that  hydrogen  is  14.4  lighter,  but  as  his  predeces- 
sors could  not  distinguish  any  difference  between  the  gravity 
of  hydrogen  and  the  atmosphere,  and  believed  all  gases  to  be 
of  equal  weight,  his  approximate  calculation  is  astonishing. 
But  of  course  this  was  Cavendish's  only  function  in  life  —  to 
weigh  things  and  measure  them  and  analyze  them. 

Cavendish's  discovery  of  the  lightness  of  hydrogen  was  the 
nucleus  around  which  developed  a  daring  and  noble  art: 

Among  the  picturesque  hills  of  Annonay,  dwelt  old  Peter 
Montgolfier,  manufacturing  paper-bags  that  brought  him  com- 
fortable money.  He  had  two  sons,  Stephen  and  Joseph,  who 
helped  him  in  the  business,  but  also  spent  considerable  time 
reading  Priestley's  and  Cavendish's  essays  on  different  kinds 
of  air, —  and  watching  the  clouds  on  high.  They  wondered 
what  would  happen  if  they  could  imprison  a  bag  in  a  cloud: 
would  it  rise  and  float  above  their  heads,  sailing  beyond  the 
church-steeple  and  over  the  tree-tops. 

It  was  not  so  easy  to  catch  a  cloud,  but  since  hydrogen  was 
so  very  light,  why  not  try  that?  They  did  make  the  attempt, 
tho  an  unsuccessful  one,  for  the  paper  proved  permeable  to  the 
gas.  But  the  sons  of  Peter  Montgolfier  were  prejudiced  in 
favor  of  pulp,  and  instead  of  abandoning  the  paper  as  an  un- 
suitable envelope  for  the  gas,  they  sought  for  another  gas  more 
suitable  for  the  paper. 

Smoke  ascended :  every  naked  savage  knew  that.  If  a  bag 
should  be  filled  with  smoke,  would  it  not  also  ascend?  How 
strange  that  some  restless  intellect,  an  Aristotle  or  a  Paracelsus 
or  a  Newton,  had  never  thought  of  it ! 

The  Montgolfier  brothers  filled  a  bag  with  smoke,  and  the 
bag  arose;  they  raised  their  hands,  but  the  heated  air  carried 
the  bag  beyond  their  reach  —  higher  than  any  house  in  the 
village.  So  the  first  balloon  sailed  in  a  little  town  that  had 
nothing  to  make  it  famous  except  a  Gothic  church  built  in  the 
fourteenth  century. 

The  Montgolfiers  came  to  Versailles  to  amuse  the  French 
court;  and  as  Louis  XVI  and  Marie  Antoinette  required  all 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

they  saw  to  be  gorgeous,  like  their  too-ornate  palaces  and 
over-gilt  carriages,  the  balloon  was  showily  painted  with  orna- 
ments in  oil.  An  osier  cage  was  suspended  at  the  bottom,  and 
in  it  were  placed  a  sheep,  a  cock,  and  a  duck:  the  first  aerial 
passengers  —  except  of  course  the  birds  that  travel  on  the 
wing.  The  balloon  mounted  to  a  height  of  1500  feet  and  re- 
mained in  space  till  the  hot  air  acquired  the  temperature  of 
the  surrounding  atmosphere  —  in  eight  minutes  —  and  then 
descended  in  the  wood  of  Vancresson,  two  miles  distant.  The 
sheep  kicked  the  cock,  hurting  its  right  wing,  but  otherwise 
there  were  no  accidents.  Thus,  amid  the  masque  of  powder 
and  the  scent  of  patchouli,  was  born  the  art  of  aeronautics. 
Naturally  these  experiments  excited  every  alert  mind : 
Would  man  learn  to  aviate  the  atmosphere?  Would  the 
fabled  wings  of  Daedulus  become  realities?  Young  Jenner 
made  a  balloon  of  his  own,  and  old  Euler  was  all  agog.  Leon- 
ard Euler  was  the  greatest  mathematician  of  the  century. 
The  hand  of  the  potter  did  not  shake  when  he  was  molded: 
he  had  a  giant's  strength  and  an  intellect  that  matched.  But 
Euler  abused  his  privileges.  In  three  days  he  solved  a  prob- 
lem that  took  other  experts  months.  He  found  the  answer, 
but  nature  protested.  Euler  sank  to  his  bed  in  a  fever,  and 
when  he  rose,  there  was  no  sight  in  his  right  eye.  The 
mighty  man  laughed,  and  continued  his  work.  A  cataract 
formed  in  his  left  eye,  making  him  practically  blind.  But 
Euler  did  not  cease  his  investigations.  Then  Wenzell  came 
to  the  mathematician,  and  couched  his  cataract,  and  Leonard 
Euler  once  more  saw  his  wife  and  children.  '  Take  care,' 
said  Wenzell,  but  Euler  studied  day  and  night,  till  sight  left 
him  again.  But  Leonard  Euler  worked  on.  He  was  throw- 
ing light  on  every  phase  of  mathematics  —  how  could  he  stop 
for  his  own  physical  darkness  ?  Age  advanced  upon  him,  but 
he  continued  his  researches,  dictating  memoirs  on  planetory 
perturbations,  perfecting  integral  calculus,  creating  the  sub- 
ject of  partition  of  numbers,  inventing  the  calculation  of  sines, 
nearly  squaring  the  circle,  winning  prizes  from  even  the  Ber- 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  163 

nouillis.  Scornful  of  infirmities,  his  magnificent  activities 
would  have  exhausted  a  score  of  lesser  men.  He  had  long 
passed  the  allotted  years  of  the  psalmist  when  he  heard  of  the 
ascensions  at  Annonay.  The  mathematical  theory  of  the  mo- 
tion of  a  balloon  engrossed  a  mind  that  knew  so  well  the 
motions  of  planets.  The  skilled  hand  grasped  the  chalk,  and 
when  great  Leonard  Euler  was  dead, —  having  ceased  to  cal- 
culate and  to  breathe  at  the  same  moment  —  his  blackboard 
was  found  covered  with  his  last  investigation :  the  rate  of  as- 
cent of  a  balloon. 

At  this  time  a  balloon  was  constructed  in  Paris  by  the 
brothers  Robert,  under  the  direction  of  Jacques  Charles.  The 
latter  gentleman  was  a  professor  of  natural  philosophy,  and 
desired  that  his  balloon, —  which  was  of  silk,  and  varnished 
with  a  solution  of  elastic  gum  —  be  filled  with  hydrogen  in- 
stead of  hot  air.  For  a  few  days  the  gas  was  prepared  by 
throwing  five  hundred  pounds  of  dilute  sulphuric  acid  on  a 
thousand  pounds  of  iron  filings,  but  one  day  the  balloon  dis- 
appeared from  its  accustomed  spot,  the  Palace  des  Victoires. 
Too  great  a  crowd  had  gathered  there,  and  during  the  night, 
preceded  by  torches  and  guarded  by  soldiers,  the  precious  ob- 
ject had  been  conveyed  to  the  largest  open  space  in  Paris,  the 
Champ  de  Mars.  The  next  day  a  cannon-shot  gave  the  signal 
for  the  ascent,  and  the  balloon  circled  three  thousand  feet 
above  the  immense  sea  of  faces  that  watched  below.  The  rain 
descended,  wetting  the  balloon  and  drenching  fair  ladies,  but 
no  one  paid  any  attention  to  the  shower.  For  three  quarters 
of  an  hour  the  balloon  sailed  in  the  elastic  fluid,  finally  falling 
in  a  field  where  some  frightened  peasants  tore  it  to  fragments. 

But  the  superiority  of  inflammable  air  —  as  hydrogen  was 
then  called  —  over  hot  air  was  demonstrated,  and  the  future 
of  balloonery  was  assured.  As  far  as  science  is  concerned, 
this  was  important  for  at  least  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place, 
some  scientific  experiments  of  value  were  performed  by  means 
of  the  balloon,  as  can  be  seen  without  leaving  Cavendish's 
own  work:  Cavendish,  as  mentioned  above,  determined  the 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

composition  of  the  atmosphere,  showing  the  exact  relation  be- 
tween its  two  most  important  ingredients,  nitrogen  and  oxy- 
gen. He  made  hundreds  of  experiments  which  proved  that 
the  composition  of  -the  atmosphere  is  constant,  it  being  im- 
material whether  the  air  to  be  analyzed  is  collected  on  fair  days 
or  foggy,  or  from  the  pure  country  or  the  sooty  city. 

This  led  some  chemists,  such  as  Prout  and  Thomson,  to 
maintain  that  the  air  must  be  a  chemical  compound.  But 
John  Dalton,  discoverer  of  the  Atomic  Theory,  correctly  in- 
sisted that  the  air  is  merely  a  mechanical  mixture  of  constant 
composition.  He  believed,  however,  that  since  nitrogen  is 
lighter  than  oxygen,  the  relative  amount  of  the  two  gases 
varies  at  different  heights  from  the  earth's  surface,  the  nitro- 
gen increasing  and  the  oxygen  diminishing  as  we  ascend. 

To  see  if  this  were  true,  Gay-Lussac  collected  the  atmos- 
phere in  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  also  gathered  air  in  a  bal- 
loon at  an  elevation  of  seven  thousand  meters,  for  the  chemist 
who  climbed  Vesuvius  when  the  volcano  was  vomiting  vio- 
lently, was  likewise  the  most  enthusiastic  aeronaut  of  the  day. 
His  analysis,  which  has  since  been  placed  beyond  doubt,  proved 
there  was  no  change  in  the  proportion  of  nitrogen  and  oxygen. 
In  this  work,  Gay-Lussac  was  aided  by  Thenard,  the  dis- 
coverer of  hydrogen  peroxide.  We  do  not  believe  with  the 
alchemists  that  the  baser  metals  can  be  transmuted  into  gold, 
but  we  know  that  the  application  of  hydrogen  peroxide  turns 
a  brunette  into  a  blonde. 

In  the  second  place,  ballooning  accustomed  men  to  navi- 
gate the  atmosphere,  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  intro- 
duction of  the  aeroplane, —  and  for  Langley,  Zeppelin,  Bleriot, 
Farman,  Santos-Dumont,  Arch  Hoxsey,  Hugh  Latham,  Glen 
Curtiss,  the  Wright  brothers,  and  all  the  glorious  bird-men 
who  yesterday  conquered  the  empire  of  the  air. 

The  laboratory  method  of  Cavendish  was  not  only  orderly, 
but  organized.  He  did  not  leap  from  subject  to  subject  with 
the  speed  that  Priestley  forsook  one  road  of  research  for  a 
more  novel  path.  Priestley  performed  his  experiments  with 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  165 

enthusiasm  and  ease.  He  was  a  great  man  and  a  careless 
one.  He  would  announce  a  new  theory  before  breakfast,  re- 
ject it  at  lunch,  and  formulate  another  at  the  supper-table. 
He  made  discoveries  or  mistakes  with  equal  nonchalance. 

Priestley  was  like  a  wonderful  child  amusing  himself  with 
apparatus.  For  the  '  entertainment  of  a  few  philosophical 
friends  '  he  performed  what  he  called  '  a  random  experiment,' 
which  consisted  in  exploding  hydrogen  and  oxygen  in  Volta's 
electric  eudiometer.  After  the  spark  had  passed,  a  dewy  de- 
posit was  found  on  the  sides  of  the  glass,  but  Priestley  paid 
no  attention  to  the  moisture.  This  was  by  no  means  the  only 
occasion  on  which  the  versatile  doctor  had  an  important  dis- 
covery nearly  in  his  hands,  and  brushed  it  aside  for  a  more 
cautious  observer  to  pick  up. 

Among  the  philosophical  friends  who  witnessed  Priestley's 
experiment  was  John  Warltire,  who  wanted  to  know  whether 
heat  is  heavy,  and  with  this  object  in  view  he  burned  the  gases 
several  times,  and  weighed  the  flask  after  the  explosion  and 
after  it  cooled,  reaching  however  the  incorrect  conclusion  that 
heat  is  a  ponderable  body. 

At  this  time  Cavendish  was  working  with  the  air,  and  as 
soon  as  he  heard  of  Priestley's  and  Warltire's  experiments,  he 
repeated  them.  He  took  greater  precautions  than  Warltire, 
and  finding  no  difference  between  the  first  and  second  weigh- 
ing, satisfied  himself  that  heat  is  not  a  material  entity. 

Nor  did  he  disregard  the  deposit  of  dew  which  Priestley 
passed  by  so  heedlessly.  On  the  contrary,  Cavendish  consid- 
ered it  as  '  likely  to  throw  great  light  on  the  subject  and  well 
worth  examining  more  closely.' 

Various  explosions  were  now  heard  in  the  Cavendish  lab- 
oratory, till  it  was  ascertained  that  when  one  volume  of  oxy- 
gen is  detonated  with  two  of  hydrogen,  the  gases  combine  to 
form  a  liquid  which  proved  to  be  water ! 

Since  the  dawn  of  inquiry,  when  man  first  speculated  on  the 
composition  of  substances,  water  was  considered  an  element. 
Egyptian  magician,  Chaldean  priest,  Greek  philosopher, 


166  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Arabian  alchemist,  German  iatro-chemist,  and  all  subsequent 
chemists  looked  upon  water  as  a  type  of  an  indivisible  sub- 
stance, which  could  not  be  decomposed  into  anything  simpler. 
Microscopic  monocellular  organisms  of  the  plant  and  animal 
world,  daily  splitting  up  water  into  its  component  gases  for 
their  daily  needs,  knew  better,  but  they  could  not  write  text- 
books. The  Honorable  Henry  Cavendish,  who  resided  on 
the  corner  of  Montague-place  and  Gower-street,  near  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  was  the  first  human  being  to  know  that  water  is 
a  compound,  capable  of  being  built  up  from  its  elements.  It 
was  a  synthesis  that  advanced  the  science  of  chemistry.  Did 
the  eyes  of  this  strange  man  glisten  with  a  little  joy? 

Yet  his  views  on  the  nature  of  water  were  not  as  certain 
as  the  modern  conception.  He  was  prevented  from  seeing 
too  clearly  by  the  bandage  of  phlogiston. 

On  certain  occasions,  while  detonating  common  air  with 
hydrogen,  Cavendish  obtained  not  only  water,  but  traces  of 
nitric  acid.  At  that  period  there  was  not  a  chemist  in  Europe 
who  could  have  explained  the  occurrence,  but  Cavendish  with 
his  intellectual  bull-dog  tenacity,  attacked  and  stuck  to  the 
problem  till  he  discovered  that  its  production  was  due  to  the 
nitrogen  of  the  atmosphere  which  had  combined  with  the  oxy- 
gen and  hydrogen. 

Joseph  Black,  founder  of  the  chemistry  of  the  gases,  con- 
sidered this  discovery  '  as  one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
whole  science  of  chemistry.'  The  veteran  was  so  enthusiastic 
because  of  the  light  which  it  threw  on  the  theory  of  his  be- 
loved science. 

It  explained,  for  instance,  the  production  of  nitrates  in 
the  soil.  Long  before  a  speck  of  protoplasm  thought  of  be- 
coming a  man,  the  lightning  flashed  and  converted  a  portion  of 
the  atmosphere  into  nitric  acid,  and  the  rains  washed  the  aqua 
fortis  to  the  earth,  but  it  was  reserved  for  Henry  Cavendish 
to  supply  the  key  for  this  closed  door. 


CAVENDISH,  THE  CHEMIST  167 

Certainly,  an  imperfect  life;  a  life  that  too  forcibly  recalls 
Browning's  complaint: 

Each  life's  unfulfilled  you  see, 
It  still  hangs  patchy  and  scrappy; 
They  have  not  sighed  deep,  laughed  free, 
Starved,  feasted,  despaired,  been  happy. 

Hands  that  never  helped  a  friend,  and  never  fought  for  the 
world's  prizes;  lips  that  never  trembled  with  rage,  and  never 
knew  the  kiss  of  love ;  a  heart  that  never  sank  in  sorrow,  and 
never  rose  in  ecstasy.  Passions,  none;  emotions,  absent;  fel- 
lowship, blank;  but  he  weighed  the  earth,  he  experimented 
with  fire,  he  analyzed  the  air,  he  discovered  the  composition  of 
water.  Earth,  Fire,  Air  and  Water  —  the  original  elements 
of  Empedocles:  let  us  honor  the  brain  that  enlarged  the 
boundaries  of  knowledge. 


(1728-1793) 
HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER 

When  we  make  a  discovery  in  pathology,  we  only  learn  what  we  have 
overlooked  in  Hunter's  writings  or  forgotten  in  his  lectures. 

—  JOSEPH  ADAMS. 

Hunter's  operation  for  aneurism  introduced  into  surgery  an  improve- 
ment which  has  been  more  fruitful  in  important  results  than  any  since 
Fare's  invention  of  the  ligature  for  divided  arteries. 

—  DREWRY  OTTLEY. 

THE  old  Laird  of  Long  Calderwood  must  have  felt  that  he 
had  been  a  sire  once  too  often:  he  was  nearly  seventy  years 
when  his  tenth  child  was  born,  and  the  offspring  of  his  age  was 
a  terror :  red-headed,  unruly,  impudent  and  unwilling  to  learn. 

Every  Scotch  parish  has  its  grammar-school,  but  little  Jack 
Hunter  had  an  astonishing  antipathy  towards  teachers.  And 
as  he  was  extraordinarily  obstinate,  while  his  mother  was  un- 
usually indulgent,  he  grew  up  unmolded  by  education.  He 
was  a  shameful  contrast  to  his  elder  brothers  who  were  study- 
ing law,  theology  and  medicine.  Yet  folks  could  not  consider 
Johnny  a  stupid  bairn,  for  he  was  everlastingly  plaguing  them 
with  questions  which  they  could  not  answer.  He  wanted  to, 
know  so  many  useless  things  —  what  the  clouds  are,  and  why 
the  leaves  change  color  in  autumn,  and  how  the  tadpole  be- 
comes a  frog. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  waste  time,  and  at  twenty  John  Hunter 
was  still  idle  and  ignorant,  tho  quick-witted  and  full  of  fun. 
But  he  began  to  feel  that  it  was  time  even  for  him  to  begin 
to  do  something  in  the  world,  especially  as  his  brother  Wil- 
liam, ten  years  his  senior,  was  already  famous  in  London  as  a 
medical  man.  He  wrote  to  William,  asking  if  he  might  work 
under  him  —  otherwise  he  would  enlist  in  the  army.  William 
answered  him  cordially,  and  John  Hunter  mounted  horse  for 
the  metropolis. 

171 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

The  young  adventurer  was  poor  and  was  seeking  his  for- 
tune, but  he  was  not  exactly  an  Horatio  Alger  hero.  No  Sun- 
day-school superintendent  could  have  proclaimed  him  a  model 
for  youth  to  follow.  He  associated  with  loafers,  and  gave 
himself  up  to  the  pleasures  of  the  flesh.  Forgetting  the  ad- 
vice of  his  good  mother,  he  did  not  pray  to  be  delivered  from 
the  evil  of  the  great  city,  but  smilingly  met  temptation  in  a 
rollicking  spirit  —  with  a  wine-bottle  in  his  hand  and  a  doxy 
on  his  knee. 

No  one  who  saw  him  in  the  shilling  gallery  bawling  with  his 
companions  at  a  production  of  a  dramatist  that  displeased  these 
critics,  would  have  taken  him  for  the  brother  of  the  cultured 
William  Hunter,  a  typical  university  product,  a  picture  of 
fastidiousness  and  finesse,  well-dressed  and  at  ease  in  high 
society,  a  polished  agate  —  but  John  was  a  diamond  in  the 
rough. 

William  Hunter,  the  first  great  teacher  of  anatomy  in  Eng- 
land, was  not  content  to  illustrate  his  lectures  with  the  ca- 
davers of  dogs;  he  employed  human  specimens,  and  after  his 
brother  came  to  London  he  thought  he  might  engage  him  in 
the  capacity  of  demonstrator.  So  he  told  him  to  try  to  dissect 
the  muscles  of  the  arm.  John  took  the  scalpel,  and  like  an- 
other Vesalius,  prepared  a  flawless  specimen.  The  elegant 
William  looked  with  surprise  at  this  untrained  clout  who  dis- 
sected so  skillfully.  He  then  gave  John  another  arm,  but  with 
the  blood-vessels  injected,  and  this  time  he  was  to  expose 
not  only  the  muscles  but  the  arteries,  yet  when  John  laid  down 
the  knife,  his  admiring  brother  informed  him  that  he  would 
be  a  good  anatomist. 

He  now  began  to  study  at  Chelsea  Hospital  under  Chesel- 
den,  who  could  perform  a  lithotomy  in  fifty-four  seconds, 
and  at  St  Bartholomew's  Hunter  became  a  pupil  of  Per- 
cival  Pott  —  the  gentleman  who  had  such  a  sense  of  the  fit- 
ness of  things  that  he  composed  his  Treatise  on  Ruptures  when 
he  lay  in  bed  with  a  compound  fracture  of  the  leg. 

In   1 7.53,   when   John  was   twenty-five  years  of   age,   his 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER      173 

brother  persuaded  him  to  register  as  a  Gentleman  Commoner 
at  St  Mary's  Hall,  Oxford.  In  less  than  two  months  John 
left  the  classic  institution,  but  he  never  forgot  the  experience. 
'  Why,'  he  used  to  say,  *  they  tried  to  make  an  old  woman  of 
me ;  they  wanted  to  stuff  me  with  Greek  and  Latin  at  the  Uni- 
versity, but,'  and  he  pressed  his  thumb-nail  on  the  table,  '  these 
schemes  I  cracked  like  so  many  vermin  as  they  came  before 
me.' 

John  returned  to  his  beloved  dissecting-room,  and  here  he 
learnt  enough  to  be  able  to  say  of  a  rival  surgeon,  '  Jesse  Foot 
accuses  me  of  not  understanding  the  dead  languages;  but  I 
could  teach  him  on  the  dead  body  what  he  never  knew  in  any 
language  living  or  dead.' 

About  this  time  the  mode  of  the  connection  between  the 
placenta  and  the  uterus  was  discovered,  but  whether  by  Wil- 
liam or  John  it  is  difficult  to  say,  as  both  brothers  claimed 
the  honor.  However,  the  unpleasant  incident  seemed  to  be 
forgotten,  for  in  the  same  year,  1754,  John  commenced  to  de- 
liver lectures  in  his  brother's  school  —  an  occupation  in  which 
he  was  a  failure.  He  never  began  a  course  without  taking 
twenty  drops  of  laudanum,  and  he  read  from  a  manuscript 
without  daring  to  raise  his  eyes  from  the  paper.  In  contrast 
to  his  brother  who  possessed  marked  oratorical  ability  and 
chose  with  care  the  exact  word,  John  used  the  language  of 
stable-boys.  In  speaking  of  syphilis,  he  exclaimed,  '  I 
knocked  down  the  disease  with  mercury  and  I  killed  it,'  and  in 
telling  of  a  gunshot  wound,  he  said  '  the  ball  went  into  the 
man's  belly  and  hit  his  guts  such  a  damned  thump,  that  they 
mortified.' 

But  altho  it  is  agreed  that  he  was  not  a  success  as  a  lecturer, 
it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  most  serious  of  his  pupils  de- 
rived considerable  benefit  from  his  instruction.  For  scribbled 
on  scraps  of  paper  in  faulty  spelling  and  shaky  syntax  were 
brilliant  observations  and  far-reaching  generalizations  which 
could  not  be  found  in  the  most  elaborate  text-books  of  the  day. 

Then  there  was   an  open-mindedness   about   Hunter  that 


174. 

must  have  appealed  to  those  of  his  students  who  relished  in- 
dependent thinking.  '  Sir,'  asked  a  pupil  in  surprise,  '  did 
you  not  say  the  opposite  of  this  last  year?'  'Very  likely  I 
did,'  was  the  answer,  '  I  hope  I  grow  wiser  every  year.'  '  Sir,' 
asked  another  pupil,  '  had  you  not  previously  written  —  ?  ' 
'  Never  ask  me,'  replied  Hunter,  '  what  I  have  said,  or  what 
I  have  written;  but  if  you  will  ask  me  what  my  present  opin- 
ions are,  I  will  tell  you.'  '  Gentlemen,'  said  Hunter,  when 
he  saw  his  pupils  taking  notes,  '  you  had  better  not  write 
down  that  observation,  for  very  likely  I  shall  think  differently 
next  year.' 

Whatever  may  be  said  against  this  perplexing  method  of 
imparting  knowledge,  the  fact  remains  that  few  teachers  could 
point  to  such  fruit  as  Hunter,  for  among  his  pupils  were  the 
foremost  surgeons  of  the  day:  Astley  Paston  Cooper,  John 
Abernethy,  James  Macartney,  Anthony  Carlisle,  Henry  Cline ; 
John  Thompson,  author  of  the  term  '  varioloid ' ;  William 
Lynn,  to  whom  Hunter  once  said  when  he  was  interrupted 
in  his  dissecting  by  a  patient,  '  Well,  Lynn,  I  must  go  and 
earn  this  damned  guinea,  or  I  shall  be  sure  to  want  it  to- 
morrow'; Thomas  Chevalier,  the  well-known  Professor  of 
Anatomy  and  Surgery  at  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons; 
James  Wilson,  the  first  to  describe  the  fasiculus  of  the  com- 
pressor urethrae  since  known  as  Wilson's  muscle;  Edward 
Coleman,  the  cattle's  physician,  author  of  Anatomy  and 
Diseases  of  the  Foot  of  the  Horse,  the  founder  of  scientific 
veterinary  surgery  in  Great  Britain;  Guy  of  Chichester,  John 
Kingston,  and  others.  Americans,  too,  came  to  study  under 
Hunter:  there  was  William  Shippen,  the  first  to  deliver  a 
systematic  course  of  lectures  on  surgery  in  this  country,  and 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania;  and 
then  there  was  Philip  Syng  Physick,  the  father  of  American 
Surgery.  Physick's  father  brought  him  to  Hunter  and  asked 
what  books  his  son  would  be  expected  to  read.  *  Sir,'  said 
Hunter,  '  follow  me;  I  will  show  you  the  books  your  son  has 
to  study,'  and  leading  the  way  to  the  dissecting-room,  he 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     175 

pointed  to  the  corpses.     But  we  have  not  yet  named  his  great- 
est pupil  and  the  best-beloved  of  all  —  Jenner. 

As  the  mind  of  Hunter  matured,  his  passion  to  study  nature 
increased,  and  on  the  outskirts  of  London  he  managed  to 
secure  two  acres  which  he  populated  with  the  inhabitants  of 
rivers,  mountains,  jungles  and  deserts.  These  strange  ani- 
mals in  the  possession  of  another  man  would  have  consti- 
tuted a  circus,  but  under  his  observant  eye  they  became  an 
institute  of  natural  history.  On  these  grounds,  sheep  from 
Turkey  and  shawl-goats  from  the  East  Indies  fed  together, 
an  ostrich  pastured  with  buffaloes,  and  opossums  and  hedge- 
hogs —  which  Jenner  sent  —  looked  at  zebras  and  sniffed  at 
the  greedy  jackal.  In  a  pond  were  fishes,  frogs,  leeches,  eels, 
mussels.  Geese  and  ducks  waddled  around,  bees  and  wasps 
were  there  in  swarms,  rabbits  scampered  to  and  fro,  the  air 
was  a-flutter  with  pigeons,  a  whale  was  dissected,  and  an 
eagle  sat  alone  in  solitary  grandeur.  To  learn  its  methods 
of  self-defense  Hunter  wrestled  with  a  beautiful  young  bull 
which  the  Queen  gave  him,  and  in  one  of  these  frolics  he 
nearly  lost  his  life.  From  an  out-house  two  of  his  leopards 
broke  loose,  and  when  about  to  climb  over  the  wall,  were 
carried  back  to  their  dens  by  the  bare  hands  of  Hunter  —  a 
perilous  procedure. 

John  Hunter  was  alive;  his  curiosity  was  limitless.  To 
see  something  interesting  he  would  travel  anywhere,  and  to 
obtain  it  he  would  spend,  beg,  coax,  cajole  and  threaten. 
'  Pray,  George/  he  said  to  his  friend  George  Nicol  the  book- 
seller, '  have  you  got  any  money  in  your  pocket  ?  '  'I  have/ 
'  Have  you  got  five  guineas?  because  if  you  have,  and  will 
lend  it  to  me,  you  shall  go  halves.'  'Halves  in  what?' 
'  Why,  halves  in  a  magnificent  tiger,  which  is  now  dying 
in -Castle  Street.' 

'  I  am  told/  he  wrote  to  Jenner,  '  there  is  a  skin  of  a  toad 
in  Berkeley  Castle  that  is  of  prodigious  size.  Let  me  know 
the  truth  of  it,  its  dimensions,  what  bones  are  still  in  it,  and 
if  it  can  be  stolen  by  some  invisible  being.  I  buried  two 


176 

toads,  last  August  a  twelvemonth;  I  opened  the  grave  last 
October  and  they  were  well  and  lively.  Have  you  any  queer 
fish?  Write  to  me  soon  and  let  me  have  all  the  news.' 

'  Come,  now/  said  Hunter  to  Dr  Clarke,  '  I  positively  must 
have  that  preparation.'  '  No,  John  Hunter,  you  positively 
shall  not.'  '  You  will  not  give  it  to  me,  then  ?  '  '  No.'  '  Will 
you  sell  it? '  '  No.'  '  Well  then,  take  care  I  don't  meet  you 
with  it  in  some  dark  lane  at  night,  for  if  I  do,  I'll  murder 
you  to  get  it.' 

One  time  Hunter  was  arguing  to  be  allowed  to  perform  a 
post-mortem  examination;  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  and  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  with  his  feet  spread  apart  as  if  to  bal- 
ance his  anxiety,  he  made  an  earnest  figure.  '  Then,  sir,'  he 
said  at  last,  turning  to  the  master  of  the  house,  '  you  will  not 
permit  the  examination  to  be  made?'  'It  is  impossible.' 
'  Then,  sir,'  were  the  final  words  of  Hunter,  '  I  heartily  hope 
that  yourself  and  all  your  family,  nay,  all  your  friends,  may 
die  of  the  same  disease,  and  that  no  one  may  be  able  to  afford 
any  assistance/ 

In  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds'  painting  of  John  Hunter  —  that 
lifelike  picture  in  which  the  rapt  sitter  seems  able  to  break 
forth  from  the  canvas  at  any  moment  —  part  of  the  back- 
ground is  formed  by  the  feet  of  a  skeleton  of  abnormal  size. 
This  was  the  skeleton  of  Charles  O'Brien,  the  famous  Irish 
giant.  When  the  huge  creature  began  to  sicken,  John  Hunter 
cast  longing  eyes  upon  him.  Hunter  was  a  tireless  worker, 
and  for  hours  would  stand  motionless  dissecting  an  insect  in 
true  Jan  Swammerdam  fashion,  but  after  all  it  would  be  some 
satisfaction  to  trace  nerves  of  magnitude,  and  to  examine 
titanic  muscles  from  broad  origin  to  vast  insertion.  The 
giant  learnt  that  Hunter  had  designs  upon  his  carcass,  and  to 
escape  the  anatomist's  scalpel  he  gave  orders  that  when  he 
died  he  should  be  placed  in  a  leaden  coffin  and  sunk  into  the 
sea.  But  the  men  whom  the  undertaker  hired  to  watch  the 
eight-foot  corpse,  watched  also  the  opportunity  to  refresh 
their  lesser  but  living  bodies  with  liquor.  Hunter's  servant 


HUNTER 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     177 

discovered  their  favorite  ale-house  and  informed  his  master, 
who  came  there  immediately,  met  one  of  the  party  and  offered 
him  fifty  pounds  if  he  would  allow  the  body  to  be  kidnapped. 
The  man  said  he  must  consult  his  companions,  and  returned 
saying  that  the  bribe  would  have  to  be  one  hundred  pounds. 
Hunter  eagerly  agreed,  but  the  others  were  quick  to  perceive 
their  advantage  —  no,  they  were  not  Jews,  but  sons  of  Erin, 
—  and  they  kept  on  bargaining  until  finally  they  raised  the  de- 
mand to  five  hundred  pounds.  This  was  far  more  than 
Hunter  could  spare,  but  still  less  could  he  spare  the  giant's 
body,  so  he  borrowed  the  money,  and  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  the  mortal  remains  of  Charles  O'Brien  were  conveyed 
to  his  residence,  while  a  leaden  coffin,  weighted  with  paving 
stones,  was  sunk  in  deep  water. 

Among  the  many  schemes  that  grew  from  Hunter's  prolific 
brain  none  was  greater  than  his  idea  to  found  a  museum  whose 
collections  would  illustrate  all  the  functions  of  life.  On  the 
furtherance  of  this  conception  he  spent  much  of  his  time  and 
most  of  his  money.  When  the  Museum  assumed  colossal 
proportions,  Hunter  opened  it  for  inspection  during  two 
months  of  the  year  —  October  for  the  profession,  and  May 
for  '  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who  are  in  town  only  dur- 
ing the  spring.'  So  inconsistent  is  the  genus  homo,  that  altho 
Hunter  sprang  from  the  soil,  and  was  a  rough  and  ready  fel- 
low all  his  life,  a  blunt  out-spoken  man  hating  sham,  he  was 
nevertheless  one  of  the  staunchest  of  Tories.  He  used  to  say 
that  he  wished  all  the  rascals  who  were  dissatisfied  with  their 
country  would  be  good  enough  to  leave  it.  Hunter  was  an 
innovator  in  surgery,  but  he  regarded  with  horror  an  inno- 
vator in  politics.  In  reply  to  a  request  that  he  permit  a  cer- 
tain foreigner  to  go  thru  his  Museum,  he  wrote,  '  If  your 
friend  is  in  London  in  October  (and  not  a  Democrat)  he  is 
welcome  to  see  it ;  but  I  would  rather  see  it  in  a  blaze,  like  the 
Bastile,  than  show  it  to  a  Democrat,  let  his  country  be  what 
it  may.' 

But  we  must  see  his  magnificent  collections,  and  since  we 


178  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

may  not  come  in  with  the  noblemen,  and  it  is  always  uncer- 
tain who  is  a  gentleman,  we  will  enter  as  members  of  the 
profession.  Perhaps  we  will  be  so  fortunate  as  to  meet 
Blumenbach  or  Scarpa  there. 

What  specimens  —  thousands  upon  thousands  —  dry,  in 
spirits,  stuffed, —  everything:  varieties  of  the  cuticle  of  dif- 
ferent animals,  showing  how  it  increases  in  vascularity  in 
proportion  as  its  sensibility  increases;  the  organs  of  taste, 
smell,  hearing  and  sight,  exhibited  in  ascending  series.  The 
individual  peculiarities  of  plants  and  animals,  monsters,  mum- 
mies, the  skulls  of  the  five  great  divisions  of  the  human  race, 
the  development  of  the  brain  and  spinal  marrow  from  the 
knotted  cord  of  the  Crustacea  upwards  thru  fishes,  reptiles  and 
birds,  to  the  brain  and  spinal  cord  of  the  mammalia;  teeth, 
from  the  beaks  of  birds  to  the  tusks  of  boars ;  specimens  show- 
ing the  effects  of  various  diseases  on  brains,  hearts,  lungs, 
stomachs,  intestines,  spleens,  kidneys  —  the  apotheosis  of  pa- 
thology. 

But  we  have  not  yet  seen  the  division  illustrative  of  the 
function  of  reproduction.  Here  are  preparations  of  the 
sexual  organs  in  hermaphrodite  plants,  preparations  of  the 
organs  in  self -impregnating  animals,  and  preparations  of  those 
animals  which  perform  a  double  coitus.  How  nicely  the 
series  is  arranged,  first  exhibiting  the  testes  and  penis  in  in- 
sects, then  in  several  kinds  of  fishes,  and  numerous  specimens 
of  the  testicle  in  the  toad,  showing  how  in  the  season  of  coup- 
ling it  increases  in  size  and  is  attended  with  an  increase  in  the 
size  of  the  tubercle  of  the  thumb,  which  is  employed  in  re- 
taining the  female.  Next  comes  the  double  penis  of  snakes 
and  lizards ;  we  examine  the  crocodile  and  turtle  and  observe 
that  in  them  it  is  single  and  begins  to  assume  the  general  form 
which  it  exhibits  in  the  mammalia;  and  so  the  specimens  go 
on  till  they  portray  the  virile  organ  of  man.  It  is  the  shrine 
of  Priapus. 

Of  course  in  this  department  are  preparations  of  the  fe- 
male organs  also  —  the  pistils  in  plants,  ovaries  and  ducts  in 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     179 

molluscous  animals,  and  then  all  thru  the  scale  up  to  the  fully- 
developed  genitalia  of  woman  —  and  all  the  changes  that  occur 
in  wombs,  and  the  different  ways  in  which  ova  are  hatched, 
and  the  peculiarities  of  structure  in  the  young  animal  during 
the  fetal  state,  and  the  various  modes  in  which  food  and  pro- 
tection are  furnished  for  the  young  animal,  as  the  temporary 
cells  on  the  back  of  the  pipa  frog,  the  pouch  of  marsupial 
creatures,  the  nests  that  birds  build,  the  glandular  structure 
in  the  crop  of  pigeons  which  secretes  a  kind  of  milk,  the  lactif- 
erous glands  of  the  higher  animals  —  and  what  not  The 
whole  place  is  a  hymn  to  Fecundity. 

At  the  farthest  end  of  the  room  a  man  is  working.  He  is 
small,  five  feet  two  inches  in  height,  but  his  short  neck  and 
broad  shoulders  give  him  an  appearance  of  strength;  he  is 
dressed  in  a  loose  dissecting-apron,  with  the  cuffs  turned  back ; 
a  single  button  holds  the  garment  upon  him.  He  is  evidently 
one  of  the  workmen  around  the  place, —  let  us  pass  on.  No, 
there  is  too  much  intensity  in  that  face :  it  is  John  Hunter. 

The  phenomena  of  locomotion,  digestion,  absorption,  circu- 
lation, respiration,  etc.,  were  illustrated  in  so  comprehensive  a 
fashion  in  the  Hunterian  Museum  —  beginning  with  the  low- 
est plants  and  the  smallest  insects,  and  gradually  leading  up 
to  the  highest  forms  of  organic  life  —  that  it  is  strange  that 
the  gifted  founder  did  not  hit  upon  the  idea  of  Evolution. 
Before  him  lay  the  whole  drama  of  development,  he  saw  every 
organ  in  its  primitive  form  and  in  its  increasingly  complex 
stages,  but  he  did  not  anticipate  the  Origin  of  Species.  Dar- 
win quotes  Hunter  several  times,  and  in  the  Descent  of  Man 
refers  to  him  as  '  the  illustrious  Hunter,'  but  he  does  not  men- 
tion him  as  one  of  those  who  had  an  intimation  of  trans- 
formism. 

But  a  study  of  Hunter's  writings  does  reveal  at  least  one 
remarkable  passage  which  proves  that  if  he  had  pursued  the 
subject  further  he  would  be  reckoned  among  the  precursors  of 
the  theory  of  natural  selection.  '  It  certainly  may  be  laid 
down,'  wrote  Hunter,  '  as  one  of  the  principles  or  laws  of  na- 


180  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

ture  to  deviate  under  certain  circumstances.  It  may  also  be 
observed  that  it  is  neither  necessary,  nor  does  it  follow  that 
all  deviations  from  the  original  must  be  a  falling  off;  it  ap- 
pears just  the  contrary;  therefore  we  may  suppose  that  na- 
ture is  improving  her  works,  or  at  least  has  established  the 
principle  of  improvement  in  the  body  as  well  as  in  the  mind.' 

The  Museum  was  Hunter's  church,  work  was  his  re- 
ligion,—  and  he  had  no  other.  He  slept  only  four  hours  a 
night  and  napped  for  an  hour  after  dinner,  but  all  the  rest  of 
the  twenty-four  hours  were  spent  in  labor.  If  you  asked 
for  an  appointment  with  him  he  was  apt  to  tell  you  to  meet 
him  at  five  in  the  morning  or  earlier,  and  if  you  came  at  that 
hour  you  could  find  him  already  dissecting.  '  Ah,  John,'  said 
old  Dr  Maxwell  Garthshore,  '  you  are  always  at  work ! '  *  I 
am,'  was  the  answer,  '  and  when  I  am  dead  you  will  not  soon 
meet  with  another  John  Hunter.' 

He  discovered  much:  he  was  forever  experimenting.  He 
had  the  privilege  of  making  experiments  on  the  deer  in  Rich- 
mond Park,  and  once  he  caught  a  buck  and  tied  one  of  its 
external  carotid  arteries;  he  was  not  perplexed  when  the  half- 
grown  antler,  which  had  received  its  blood-supply  from  the 
imprisoned  vessel,  became  cold  to  the  touch.  But  a  week 
or  two  later,  when  the  wound  around  the  ligatured  artery 
healed,  Hunter  again  examined  the  antler  and  was  surprised 
to  observe  that  it  had  regained  its  warmth  and  was  growing. 
Thinking  that  perhaps  the  artery  had  not  been  sufficiently 
bound,  Hunter  killed  the  buck  to  ascertain  if  this  was  really 
the  case,  but  he  had  done  his  work  well:  he  found  that  the 
external  carotid  was  tightly  secured.  But  he  found  also  that 
certain  small  branches  of  the  artery,  both  above  and  below 
the  ligature,  had  enlarged  and  by  their  anastomoses  had  re- 
stored the  blood-supply  of  the  developing  antler.  '  Oho,'  said 
Hunter,  '  I  see  that  under  the  stimulus  of  necessity  the  smaller 
arterial  channels  quickly  increase  in  size  to  do  the  work  of 
the  larger.  I  must  remember  that.' 

Not  many  months  later  there  lay  in  St  George's  Hospital  a 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     181 

patient  who  was  looked  upon  as  doomed :  either  he  would  suc- 
cumb to  popliteal  aneurism,  or  he  would  perish  under  the  sur- 
geon's knife,  for  few  who  underwent  this  operation  lived  to 
undergo  anything  else.  So  frequently  fatal  was  this  opera- 
tion that  the  profession  began  to  adopt  Percival  Pott's  method 
—  amputation  of  the  limb  above  the  tumor.  But  the  phy- 
sician in  Hunter  revolted  against  this  idea  of  mutilating  a 
man.  He  never  regarded  an  operation  a  success  if  the  patient 
rose  from  the  operating-table  a  cripple.  Hunter  thought  of 
his  experiment  with  the  buck  —  recalled  that  when  the  pas- 
sage thru  a  main  trunk  is  arrested,  the  collateral  vessels  are 
capable  of  continuing  the  circulation;  if,  he  wondered,  far 
from  the  seat  of  the  disease  he  fettered  the  artery  in  the  sound 
parts  where  it  is  tied  when  amputation  is  performed,  would 
not  the  absorbants  be  able  to  cope  with  the  tumor?  So  in 
the  lower  part  of  its  course  in  the  thigh,  in  the  fibrous  sheath 
since  known  as  Hunter's  Canal,  he  ligatured  his  patient's  fem- 
oral artery.  In  six  weeks  the  patient  left  the  hospital,  walk- 
ing on  the  legs  that  Nature  gave  him  and  that  Hunter  saved 
for  him.  And  following  in  his  path,  on  healthy  limbs,  have 
trod  thousands  of  men,  rescued  from  deformity  or  death  by 
this  discovery  of  John  Hunter. 

Writing  was  a  hardship  to  Hunter,  and  his  friends  had  to 
be  called  in  to  correct  his  spelling  and  strengthen  his  gram- 
mar, but  he  left  behind  him  a  considerable  list  of  publica- 
tions. In  1767  he  was  elected  a  F.  R.  S.  and  he  contributed 
many  papers  to  the  Philosophical  Transactions  of  the  Society. 
Among  these  valuable  memoirs  we  may  mention:  Anatomical 
Observations  on  the  Torpedo;  Observations  on  the  Gillaroo 
Trout;  An  Account  of  the  Gymnatus  Electricus;  Experiments 
on  Animals  and  Vegetables  with  Respect  to  the  Power  of  Pro- 
ducing Heat;  Proposals  for  the  Recovery  of  People  Appar- 
ently Drowned;  An  Account  of  the  Free  Martin;  Account  of 
the  Organ  of  Hearing  in  Fishes;  Observations  Tending  to 
Show  that  the  Wolf,  Jackal  and  Dog  are  All  of  the  same 
Species;  An  Experiment  to  Determine  the  Effect  of  Extirpat- 


182  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

ing  one  Ovarium  upon  the  Number  of  Young  Produced;  Ob- 
servations on  the  Structure  and  Economy  of  Whales;  Obser- 
vations on  Bees;  Observations  on  Fossil  Bones.  The  modest 
titles  of  these  essays  do  not  suggest,  even  faintly,  the  scope 
of  thought  or  the  amount  of  experimentation  that  went  into 
their  making;  for  instance  the  paper  on  the  Bees  was  the  re- 
sult of  twenty  years  of  the  hardest  thinking  and  the  most 
careful  kind  of  original  research.  All  his  books  were  of 
great  importance :  A  Treatise  on  the  Natural  History  of  the 
Human  Teeth;  A  Treatise  on  the  Venereal  Disease;  Observa- 
tions on  Certain  Parts  of  the  Animal  Economy;  A  Treatise  on 
the  Blood,  Inflammation,  and  Gunshot  Wounds. 

Most  of  his  books  were  printed  in  his  own  house  by  com- 
positors in  his  own  service.  In  adopting  this  plan  Hunter 
evinced  much  wisdom,  for  he  was  an  impatient  hot-headed 
man  afflicted  with  angina  pectoris,  and  he  would  never  have 
lasted  long  if  he  had  permitted  himself  to  be  worried  by  the 
aggravating  tribe  of  type-setters  and  book-binders. 

It  was  in  May  1771  that  Hunter's  first  book  appeared,  and 
two  months  later  he  married  Miss  Anne  Home,  spending  the 
proceeds  of  the  publication  upon  the  event,  which  indicates 
that  it  must  have  been  a  very  modest  wedding.  He  an- 
nounced the  news  to  William  in  the  following  letter : 

'  Dear  Brother, —  To-morrow  morning  at  eight  o'clock 
and  at  St  James's  Church  I  enter  into  the  Holy  State  of 
Matrimony.  As  that  is  a  ceremony  which  you  are  not  par- 
ticularly fond  of,  I  will  not  make  a  point  of  having  your 
company  there.  I  propose  going  out  of  town  for  a  few  days; 
when  I  come  to  town  I  shall  call  upon  you.  Married  or  not 
married,  ever  yours,  John  Hunter.' 

Hunter  was  forty-three  at  this  time,  his  wife  was  twenty- 
nine.  Anne  was  quite  a  personality  —  not  a  mere  house- 
keeper. She  was  amiable  and  beautiful  and  clever;  her  poems 
were  published  in  a  volume.  Her  impassioned  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  young  Chatterton  should  be  remembered  by  all 
who  venerate  the  genius  of  that  unfortunate  poet  who  was 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER    183 

forced  to  slay  himself  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  but  whose  name 
will  never  disappear  from  English  literature.  It  was  Mrs 
Hunter  who  supplied  the  words  for  Haydn's  Creation,  and 
she  likewise  furnished  the  verses  for  several  of  the  Austrian 
composer's  canzonets.  As  an  example  of  her  style,  let  us 
quote  one  of  these  pretty  songs: 

My  mother  bids  nte  bind  my  hair 

With  bands  of  rosy  hue, 
Tie  up  my  sleeves  with  ribbons  rare, 

And  lace  my  bodice  blue. 

V 

For  why,  she  cries,  sit  still  and  weep, 

While  others  dance  and  play? 
Alas !  I  scarce  can  go  or  creep, 

While  Lubin  is  away. 

'Tis  sad  to  think  the  days  are  gone, 

When  those  we  love  were  near; 
I  sit  upon  this  mossy  stone, 

And  sigh  when  none  can  hear. 

And  while  I  spin  my  flaxen  thread, 

And  sing  my  simple  lay, 
The  village  seems  asleep  or  dead, 

Now  Lubin  is  away. 

Ottley  says  Anne  was  '  a  little  of  a  bos  bleu'  which  is  not 
so  bad,  however,  as  being  mauvais  ton.  Ottley  also  relates 
this  interesting  domestic  incident :  '  Mrs  Hunter  was  rather 
fond  of  gay  society,  a  taste  which  occasionally  interfered 
with  her  husband's  more  philosophic  pursuits.  On  returning 
home  late  one  evening,  after  a  hard  day's  fag,  Hunter  unex- 
pectedly found  his  drawing-room  filled  with  musical  profes- 
sors, connoisseurs,  and  other  idlers,  whom  Mrs  Hunter  had 
assembled.  He  was  greatly  irritated,  and  walking  straight 
into  the  room,  addressed  the  astonished  guests  pretty  much 
in  the  following  strain :  '  I  knew  nothing  of  this  kick-up,  and  I 
ought  to  have  been  informed  of  it  beforehand,  but  as  I  am 
now  returned  home  to  study,  I  hope  the  present  company  will 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

retire.'  Ottley  adds  that  this  intimation  was  speedily  fol- 
lowed by  -an  exeunt  omnes  —  but  he  does  not  report  what  hap- 
pened when  the  charming  heroine  and  the  irate  villain  were 
left  alone. 

There  is  in  existence  a  letter  by  Anne  Hunter,  written  at 
Bath,  which  is  worth  reading  because  it  was  addressed  to 
Edward  Jenner  and  because  it  exhibits  John  Hunter  in  re- 
pose: 

'  Dear  Sir  —  I  take  it  for  granted  you  will  not  feel  sorry 
to  hear  Mr  Hunter  is  so  near  you,  tho  you  will  lament  that 
loss  of  health  is  the  occasion.  He  has  been  tormented  with  a 
flying  gout  since  last  March,  and  we  are  come  here  in  hope  of 
some  favorable  crisis  before  the  winter.  He  has  been  in- 
quiring for  the  post  to  Berkeley,  and  I  find  within  this  hour 
that  it  goes  off  this  evening;  as  he  is  now  asleep  after  din- 
ner, I  rather  write  myself  than  disturb  his  nap,  to  inform  you 
of  our  being  in  your  neighborhood,  and  that  Mr  Hunter  will 
be  glad  to  hear  from  you.  I  am,  dear  Sir,  your  obedient 
Servant,  A.  Hunter.' 

We  have  given  several  instances  of  Hunter's  hasty  temper, 
but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that,  like  Thomas  Carlyle,  he  was 
in  perpetual  ill-humor.  He  was  naturally  benevolent,  and 
was  beloved  by  those  who  were  not  jealous  of  him.  He  often 
returned  a  fee  if  he  thought  the  patient  could  not  afford  pay- 
ment, and  when  patients  told  him  outright  that  they  had  not 
a  shilling,  he  did  not  remind  them  there  were  other  physicians 
in  town.  Frequently  he  would  let  his  rich  patients  wait 
while  he  attended  to  the  poor,  saying  that  the  grandees  had 
nothing  to  do  anyway,  while  to  the  poor,  time  was  money.  It 
is  true,  like  most  men  he  hated  to  be  contradicted,  but  as  his 
brother  William  said,  this  is  a  special  characteristic  of 
anatomists  because  they  grow  accustomed  to  the  passive  sub- 
mission of  dead  bodies.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  for 
years  Hunter  was  a  sick  man;  he  toiled  at  his  labors  harder 
than  the  Titans  piling  mountains  upon  mountains,  but  a  ter- 
rible ailment  racked  his  body:  not  only  did  he  suffer  from 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     185 

gout,  but  angina  pectoris  —  that  agonizing  breast-pang  which 
cramps  the  heart  with  excruciating  pain  —  was  ever  ready  to 
attack  him.  Had  his  health  been  better,  no  doubt  he  would 
have  been  less  testy.  Hunter  well  knew  that  it  was  dangerous 
for  him  to  become  choleric,  and  he  used  to  say,  '  My  life  is  in 
the  hands  of  any  rascal  who  chooses  to  annoy  and  tease  me.' 

One  of  these  paroxysms  was  witnessed  by  his  brother-in-law, 
Everard  Home,  who  vividly  describes  his  condition :  '  I  was 
with  him  during  the  whole  of  this  attack,  and  never  saw  any- 
thing equal  to  the  agonies  he  suffered;  and  when  he  fainted 
away,  I  thought  him  dead.  These  affections  at  last  seized 
him  when  lying  in  bed,  and  in  his  sleep,  so  as  to  waken  him. 
The  exercise  that  generally  brought  on  the  spasms  was  walk- 
ing, especially  on  an  ascent,  either  of  stairs  or  rising  ground ; 
the  affections  of  the  mind  that  brought  them  on  were  princi- 
pally anxiety  or  anger;  the  anxiety  about  the  swarming  of  a 
hive  of  bees  brought  it  on;  the  anxiety  lest  an  animal  should 
make  its  escape  before  he  could  get  a  gun  to  shoot  it,  brought 
it  on;  even  the  hearing  of  a  story  would  bring  it  on;  anger 
brought  on  the  same  complaint,  and  he  could  conceive  it 
possible  for  that  passion  to  be  carried  so  far  as  totally  to  de- 
prive him  of  life.  But  what  was  very  extraordinary,  the 
more  tender  passions  of  the  mind  did  not  produce  it ;  he  could 
relate  a  story  which  called  up  the  finer  feelings,  as  compas- 
sion, admiration  for  the  action  of  gratitude  in  others,  so  as  to 
make  him  shed  tears:  yet  the  spasm  was  not  excited.' 

In  1780  occurred  the  most  lamentable  and  inexplicable  epi- 
sode in  the  lives  of  the  illustrious  brothers.  John  communi- 
cated to  the  Royal  Society  a  paper  on  The  Structure  of  the 
Placenta,  which  began,  '  The  connexion  between  the  mother 
and  the  fetus  in  the  human  subject  has,  in  every  age  in  which 
science  has  been  cultivated,  called  forth  the  attention  of  the 
anatomist,  the  physiologist,  and  even  the  philosopher;  but 
both  that  connexion,  and  the  structure  of  the  parts  which 
form  the  connexion,  were  unknown  until  about  the  year  1754. 
The  subject  is  certainly  most  interesting,  and  the  discovery 


186  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

important;  and  it  is  my  intention,  in  the  following  pages,  to 
give  such  an  account  of  it  as  I  hope  may  be  acceptable  to  the 
public;  while,  at  the  same  time,  I  establish  my  own  claim  to 
the  discovery.' 

In  reply  to  this  paper  William  wrote  to  the  Society  assert- 
ing that  it  was  he  who  had  made  the  discovery,  and  that  it 
could  be  found  in  his  Anatomy  of  the  Gravid  Uterus.  John 
wrote  again,  reaffirming  his  claim,  and  furnished  more  par- 
ticulars about  the  matter.  The  Royal  Society  was  then  re- 
quested to  settle  the  honors  between  them,  but  the  Council 
flatly  refused  to  publish  John's  paper  or  to  take  any  cognizance 
of  the  fraternal  quarrel. 

But  what  on  earth  had  induced  John  Hunter  to  bring  up 
again  a  sore  subject  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  old? 
Because,  said  Gossip,  he  was  angry  at  his  brother  who  was 
angry  at  him  because  he  married  Miss  Home.  But  the  elu- 
sive and  slippery  facts  we  don't  know,  you  don't  know,  no- 
body knows.  Thus  the  brothers  parted  company;  it  was 
shameful,  almost  as  scandalous  as  the  action  of  John  Ber- 
noulli who  expelled  his  son  Daniel  from  the  house  because 
the  young  man  won  the  prize  of  the  French  Academy  which 
the  father  himself  coveted. 

Three  years  later  William  Hunter  was  severely  ill,  but 
against  the  advice  of  friends  he  insisted  on  attending  his 
classes;  during  the  lecture  he  began  to  die,  but  that  well- 
trained  voice  delivered  its  sonorous  sentences;  the  discourse 
ended,  the  doctor  bowed  to  his  students  —  and  fainted  from 
exhaustion.  He  was  taken  home,  and  in  the  night  he  was 
smitten  with  a  paralytic  stroke.  When  John  heard  of  this,  he 
knew  it  was  time  to  swallow  his  pride,  and  he  asked  and  re- 
ceived permission  to  visit  William.  So  the  brothers  met 
again  —  but  the  elder  lay  on  his  death-bed.  He  died  as  grace- 
fully as  he  lived.  'HI  had  strength  enough  to  hold  a  pen,' 
were  his  last  words,  '  I  would  write  how  easy  and  pleasant  a 
thing  it  is  to  die.'  On  Sunday,  March  30,  1783,  in  the  sixty- 
fifth  year  of  his  age,  he  passed  away.  John  was  not  men- 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER    187 

tioned  in  the  will  —  not  even  the  old  homestead  of  Long  Cal- 
derwood  was  left  to  him. 

Ten  years  later  John  Hunter  himself  was  sixty-five  years 
old.  He  was  a  distinguished  man :  Fellow  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety, Member  of  the  Irish  College  of  Surgeons,  Member  of 
the  Chirurgo-Physical  Society  of  Edinburgh,  Surgeon-Gen- 
eral to  the  Army,  Inspector-General  of  Hospitals,  Surgeon  to 
St  George's  Hospital,  Surgeon-Extraordinary  to  the  King, 
etc.,  etc.  On  no  occasion,  however,  did  he  append  any  of  these 
useless  titles  to  his  name ;  in  all  his  writings  he  proudly  signed 
himself  —  John  Hunter. 

For  the  last  twenty-five  years  he  was  on  the  staff  of  St 
George's  Hospital.  The  reason  he  served  so  long  was  be- 
cause his  colleagues  couldn't  oust  him.  They  could  never  get 
along  with  Hunter,  and  they  did  not  see  why  he  received 
more  pupils  than  they  did,  and  besides  they  wanted  to  know 
what  business  had  a  surgeon  to  waste  so  much  time  in  physi- 
ological researches.  '  His  museum,'  remarked  one  of  his  as- 
sociates, '  is  of  as  much  use  as  so  many  pigs'  pettitoes.'  And 
Hunter  was  not  biblical,  and  did  not  believe  in  the  soft  an- 
swer that  turneth  away  wrath. 

Disputes  developed,  angry  letters  were  written  back  and 
forth,  and  often  the  Governors  were  asked  to  interfere,  and 
they  did  so  by  uniformly  deciding  against  Hunter  —  a  cir- 
cumstance which  did  not  tend  to  make  him  imitate  a  turtle- 
dove. He  was  of  an  imperious  nature,  and  his  high  spirit 
chafed  under  his  defeats. 

In  the  early  autumn  of  1793  his  colleagues  adopted  a  resolu- 
tion :  no  pupil  could  be  received  into  the  hospital  unless  he  had 
a  certificate  proving  that  he  had  been  bred  up  to  the  profes- 
sion. This  was  considered  a  slap  at  Hunter,  who  was  no 
stickler  for  such  things,  and  would  accept  all  pupils  who 
seemed  promising,  even  if  they  lacked  previous  education: 
perhaps  he  remembered  his  own  case.  Not  long  after  this 
rule  went  into  effect,  two  young  men  without  certificates  came 
to  Hunter  and  asked  to  be  admitted  under  him  at  the  hos- 


188  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

pital.  '  I'm  sorry,'  said  Hunter,  '  but  — -  well,  suppose  you 
write  out  your  case;  to-morrow  we  have  a  meeting  of  the 
Board,  and  I'll  do  what  I  can  for  you.  Perhaps  they'll  let 
you  in.' 

On  the  morrow  Hunter  was  in  admirable  humor.  He  was 
growing  old  and  was  somewhat  of  an  invalid,  but  his  hand 
had  not  lost  its  cunning:  that  morning  he  had  made  a  dandy 
dissection  —  just  what  he  needed  for  the  museum.  He  radi- 
ated good  cheer.  He  strode  into  the  work-rooms  and  told 
his  resident-pupils  some  funny  stories  how  children  counter- 
feit illness  —  for  certain  purposes.  His  pupils  laughed. 

Hunter  was  so  pleased  with  himself  that  he  forgot  to  take 
his  visiting-list  along  when  he  left  his  home  —  whistling  a 
Scotch  air  as  he  went.  But  William  Clift,  the  Cornish  lad 
who  idolized  Hunter,  saw  that  York  Street  was  the  first 
place  on  the  list  and  he  ran  there  with  the  day's  schedule.  He 
found  Hunter's  carriage  waiting,  and  soon  Hunter  himself 
came  out  of  the  house.  Clift  handed  him  the  record  of  ap- 
pointments, Hunter  took  it,  looked  it  over,  and  in  a  ringing 
voice  told  the  coachman  to  drive  to  the  hospital. 

He  entered.  The  meeting  had  already  begun;  Hunter  sat 
down ;  he  spoke  in  behalf  of  the  young  men.  Instantly  a  col- 
league opposed  him.  Choking  with  pain  and  rage  John 
Hunter  arose ;  he  turned  toward  the  next  room,  and  Dr  Rob- 
ertson and  Matthew  Baillie  followed  him;  Hunter  uttered  a 
groan  and  staggered  into  Dr  Robertson's  arms.  Everard 
Home,  who  was  in  the  hospital,  was  sent  for.  Hoping  that 
he  had  only  fainted,  they  worked  upon  him  for  over  an 
hour;  but  life  had  fled.  He  was  murdered  by  an  insult  — 
with  the  aid  of  angina  pectoris.  The  visiting-list  was  in  his 
pocket,  but  the  remainder  of  his  appointments  were  cancelled. 
The  Board  broke  up,  inserting  the  following  notice  in  its 
minutes : 

'  Resolved  —  That  Mr  Hunter's  letter  to  this  Board  re- 
lating to  two  of  the  surgeon's  pupils,  which  was  received  this 
day,  be  preserved  for  future  consideration.' 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     189 

The  feet  of  horses  were  heard  in  Leicester  Fields;  Mrs 
Hunter  looked  out  of  her  window  and  saw  an  empty  carriage. 

She  much  desired  that  her  husband  repose  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  but  it  was  not  to  be ;  he  was  interred  in  St  Martin's-in- 
the-Fields.  Long  afterwards  she  composed  to  his  memory  an 
Epitaph  : 

Here  rests  in  awful  silence,  cold  and  still, 
One  whom  no  common  sparks  of  genius  fired; 

Whose  reach  of  thought  Nature  alone  could  fill, 
Whose  deep  research  the  love  of  Truth  inspired. 

Hunter!  if  years  of  toil  and  watchful  care, 

If  the  vast  labors  of  a  powerful  mind 
To  soothe  the  ills  humanity  must  share, 

Deserve  the  grateful  plaudits  of  mankind  — 

Then  be  each  human  weakness  buried  here 
Envy  would  raise  to  dim  a  name  so  bright: 

Those  specks  which  in  the  orbs  of  day  appear, 
Take  nothing  from  his  warm  and  welcome  light. 

By  the  terms  of  the  will,  his  nephew,  Dr.  Matthew  Baillie  — 
the  last  medical  man  in  London  who  carried  the  famous 
gold-headed  cane  —  and  his  brother-in-law,  Sir  Everard 
Home,  were  appointed  executors.  After  the  elapse  of  some 
years  Home  insisted  on  having  all  of  Hunter's  unpublished 
manuscripts  —  he  said  he  needed  them  to  prepare  the  Cata- 
log of  the  Hunterian  Museum  —  and  William  Gift  who  had 
guarded  them  so  faithfully  put  them  in  a  cart  and  conveyed 
them  to  Sir  Everard. 

Men  began  to  speak  of  the  greatness  of  Everard  Home. 
He  contributed  more  papers  to  the  Royal  Society  than  any 
other  member,  and  these  communications  were  remarkable 
for  their  breadth  of  vision  and  for  the  number  of  discoveries 
they  contained.  '  He  inherits  the  mantle  of  John  Hunter,' 
they  said. 

The  trustees  of  the  museum  grumbled;  they  urged  Home 
to  get  the  Catalog  ready;  it  was  more  than  time.  'If  you 
are  too  busy  with  your  important  researches,'  they  suggested, 


190  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

'  let  someone  else  do  it.'  '  Nonsense,'  answered  Sir  Everard, 
'  I  will  prepare  the  Catalog  myself.'  And  the  ambitious  in- 
vestigator kept  on  reading  papers  before  the  Royal  Society, 
and  men  said  of  him,  '  He  is  a  second  John  Hunter.' 

In  July  1823  Everard  Home  received  from  the  printer  the 
last  proof  of  his  concluding  volume  of  Lectures  on  Compara- 
tive Anatomy.  Sir  Everard  was  ageing,  and  knew  that  death 
might  take  him  unawares,  but  as  he  did  not  wish  men  to  know 
that  for  years  he  had  been  stealing  from  John  Hunter's  manu- 
scripts, he  placed  these  priceless  papers  upon  his  hearth. 
Flames  leaped  up  the  chimney ;  so  much  smoke  was  made  that 
the  engines  came,  and  firemen  demanded  entrance ;  but  Modred 
calmed  them :  the  house  was  not  on  fire  —  it  was  only  John 
Hunter's  manuscripts  burning. 

The  case  came  to  court,  and  Sir  Everard  defended  himself 
by  saying  that  Hunter  had  commanded  him  to  destroy  the 
manuscripts  as  they  were  in  too  imperfect  a  form  for  the 
public.  Among  those  who  tried  to  testify  against  Sir  Everard 
was  poor  Clift —  but  he  broke  down  and  cried. 

But  William  Clift  had  done  a  deed  that  makes  posterity 
bless  his  name.  During  the  period  that  this  devoted  boy  had 
access  to  the  manuscripts,  he  frequently  read  and  made  ex- 
tracts from  them  —  with  his  own  hand  he  copied  nine  folios. 
And  many  years  later,  his  son-in-law,  the  distinguished  Sir 
Richard  Owen,  edited  these  notes  in  two  volumes,  entitled, 
John  Hunter's  Essays  and  Observations  on  Natural  History, 
Anatomy,  Physiology,  Psychology,  and  Geology  —  and  even 
Darwin  quoted  from  them. 

As  the  years  rolled  by,  the  British  nation  awoke  to  the 
fact  that  the  fitting  resting-place  of  so  great  a  man  as  Hunter 
was  Westminster  Abbey.  But  his  body  had  long  lain  in  the 
vaults  of  St  Martin's-in-the-Fields,  Who  could  locate  his 
coffin  among  thousands  ?  '  I  will  find  it,'  said  Frank  Buck- 
land.  He  spent  sixteen  days  in  the  charnel-house,  examined 
over  three  thousand  coffins  —  and  found  it.  With  more 
honor  than  he  ever  received  during  his  lifetime,  John  Hunter 


HUNTER,  THE  NATURAL  PHILOSOPHER     191 

was  buried  in  the  North  aisle  of  the  great  Abbey,  and  on 
perennial  brass  were  inscribed  the  words,  The  Founder  of 
Scientific  Surgery.  This  aisle  is  a  veritable  shrine  of  science, 
for  besides  John  Hunter  it  now  contains  the  remains  of 
Newton,  Darwin,  Herschel,  Lyell,  Woodward,  Mead,  Couch 
Adams  and  James  Prescott  Joule.  The  wishes  of  John 
Hunter's  widow  were  at  last  fulfilled,  but  she  never  knew  it : 
so  many  good  things  in  this  world  come  too  late. 

The  fame  of  Hunter  has  increased  with  the  passing  of  the 
years.  Every  Hunterian  Oration  is  eloquent  —  as  eloquent 
as  the  orator  can  make  it  —  in  praise  of  his  genius,  and 
Samuel  D.  Gross  has  left  this  line  on  record :  '  With  the  ex- 
ception of  Hippocrates,  the  father  of  Medicine,  John  Hunter 
is  the  grandest  figure  in  the  history  of  our  profession.' 

The  Life  of  Hunter  has  been  written  several  times:  patho- 
logically by  Everard  Home,  cleverly  but  maliciously  by  Jesse 
Foot,  eulogistically  by  Joseph  Adams,  colorlessly  by  Stephen 
Paget,  more  satisfactorily  by  Drewry  Ottley,  but  the  only  ade- 
quate sketch  of  his  mental  career  occurs  in  Henry  Thomas 
Buckle's  History  of  Civilisation. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  we  believe  in  the 
chasm  which  Buckle  imagines  to  exist  between  the  deductive 
and  inductive  method.  According  to  Buckle,  the  Scotch  are 
the  most  deductive  people  on  earth,  while  the  English  are  the 
most  inductive,  and  therefore,  he  argues,  since  Hunter  spent 
the  first  twenty  years  of  his  life  in  a  deductive  country  and 
the  remainder  in  an  eminently  inductive  nation,  it  follows  that 
the  two  hostile  forces  of  deduction  and  induction  struggled 
for  the  mastery  in  his  mind  and  at  times  obscured  his  under- 
standing. 

We  can  answer  this  argument  with  an  incident  from  the 
historian's  own  life:  When  Buckle  was  a  chess-player  he  oc- 
casionally met  in  the  cigar-divan  of  the  Strand  a  youth  of  his 
own  age.  Some  years  later  this  young  man  decided  to  pub- 
lish a  series  of  books  by  subscription,  and  Buckle  was  among 
the  first  subscribers.  If  Buckle  had  not  died  in  his  prime  he 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

would  have  received  the  volumes  of  the  Synthetic  Philosophy, 
beyond  all  peradventure  the  vastest  deductive  work  ever  con- 
ceived —  but  generated  and  accomplished,  not  in  a  Scotch, 
but  in  an  English  brain. 

This  then  is  the  stricture  that  we  would  pass  on  Buckle's 
examination  of  Hunter's  intellect,  but  in  all  other  respects  we 
pronounce  it  a  far  abler  and  more  comprehensive  sketch  than 
has  been  written  by  any  medical  man ;  the  passage  on  Hunter 
as  a  pathologist  is  especially  superb. 

Among  the  speculations  which  had  engaged  Hunter's  mind 
was  the  possibility  of  scientifically  freezing  human  beings, 
and  warming  them  back  to  life  a  century  or  two  afterwards. 
But  tho  he  pursued  the  subject  so  far  as  actually  to  experi- 
ment on  animals  with  this  object  in  view,  his  ingenious  project, 
like  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  ambitious  plan  to  remove  mountains 
by  the  laws  of  physics,  never  materialized.  On  the  whole  we 
need  not  regret  that  he  failed  in  this  respect,  for  it  is  with  con- 
siderable trepidation  that  we  would  view  the  re-birth  of  some 
of  Hunter's  contemporaries;  for  instance,  Samuel  Johnson, 
the  arch-obscurantist,  nor  would  we  care  to  listen  again  to 
Edmund  Burke's  puerile  lament  of  mankind's  ingratitude  to- 
wards queens. 

But  how  well  it  would  have  been  if  John  Hunter  himself, 
instead  of  perishing  in  a  passion,  had  been  congealed,  and  if 
now,  after  an  hibernation  of  120  years,  he  could  be  thawed 
out  and  live  once  more  among  us.  How  eagerly  we  would 
press  around  the  master,  and  how  much  his  disciples  would 
have  to  show  him.  But  not  long  could  we  prattle,  for  John 
Hunter  would  grow  impatient,  and  we  would  soon  see  him 
lost  in  thought,  as  when  he  sat  before  Sir  Joshua's  brush,  or 
we  would  find  him  with  rolled-up  sleeves  in  a  laboratory, 
working  over  the  great  modern  problem  of  cancer. 


(1749-1823) 
JENNER  AND  VACCINATION 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION 

Medicine  has  never  before  produced  any  single  improvement  of  such 
utility.  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  was  a  beauti- 
ful addition  to  our  knowledge  of  the  ancient  economy;  but  on  a  review 
of  the  practice  of  medicine  before  and  since  that  epoch,  I  do  not  see  any 
great  amelioration  which  has  been  derived  from  that  discovery.  You 
have  erased  from  the  calendar  of  human  afflictions  one  of  its  greatest 
Yours  is  the  comfortable  reflection  that  mankind  can  never  forget  that 
you  have  lived;  future  nations  will  know  by  history  only  that  the  loath- 
some small-pox  has  existed,  and  by  you  has  been  extirpated. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON  :  to  Edward  Jenner. 

LET  us  not  mourn  at  the  mystery  which  surrounds  the  life 
of  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  for  altho  it  is  true  that  we  can- 
not ascertain  whether  the  honorable  lady  ever  entered  a  harem 
and  saw  the  Sultan's  animated  aphrodisiacs,  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  matter  is  of  no  consequence,  while  what  we  do  know  of 
her  is  of  the  utmost  importance:  that  during  the  second  dec- 
ade of  the  eighteenth  century,  while  residing  at  Constanti- 
nople in  the  capacity  of  the  British  Ambassador's  wife,  she  ob- 
served the  Turkish  practice  of  inoculating  against  smallpox. 

Most  Englishwomen  of  that  period  would  have  scorned  to 
adopt  the  ways  of  the  heathen,  but  Lady  Mary  had  eloped 
from  the  parental  home,  and  a  woman  who  elopes  is  apt  to 
be  unprejudiced.  The  chief  fault  of  such  women  is  that 
twenty  years  later  they  object  to  their  daughters  following  in 
their  flying  footsteps. 

In  one  of  those  gossipy  letters  which  have  gained  her  a 
place  in  literature  by  the  side  of  Madame  Sevigne,  Lady  Mary 
writes :  '  I  am  going  to  tell  you  a  thing  that  I  am  sure  will 
make  you  wish  yourself  here.  The  smallpox,  so  fatal,  and  so 
general  amongst  us,  is  here  entirely  harmless  by  the  inven- 
tion of  ingrafting,  which  is  the  term  they  give  it.  There  is 
a  set  of  old  women  who  make  it  their  business  to  perform  the 


196  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

operation  every  autumn,  in  the  month  of  September,  when  the 
great  heat  is  abated.  People  send  to  one  another  to  know  if 
any  of  their  family  has  a  mind  to  have  the  smallpox;  they 
make  parties  for  this  purpose,  and  when  they  are  met  (com- 
monly fifteen  or  sixteen  together),  the  old  woman  comes  with 
a  nut-shell  full  of  the  matter  of  the  best  sort  of  smallpox,  and 
asks  what  veins  you  please  to  have  opened.  She  immediately 
rips  open  that  you  offer  to  her  with  a  large  needle  (which 
gives  you  no  more  pain  than  a  common  scratch),  and  puts 
into  the  vein  as  much  venom  as  can  lie  upon  the  head  of  her 
needle,  and  after  binds  up  the  little  wound  with  a  hollow  bit 
of  shell;  and  in  this  manner  opens  four  or  five  veins.  The 
Grecians  have  commonly  the  superstition  of  opening  one  in 
the  middle  of  the  forehead,  in  each  arm,  and  on  the  breast, 
to  mark  the  sign  of  the  cross;  but  this  has  a  very  ill  effect, 
all  these  wounds  leaving  little  scars,  and  is  not  done  by  those 
that  are  not  superstitious,  who  choose  to  have  them  in  the 
legs,  or  that  part  of  the  arm  that  is  concealed.  The  chil- 
dren or  young  patients  play  together  all  the  rest  of  the  day, 
and  are  in  perfect  health  to  the  eighth.  Then  the  fever  be- 
gins to  seize  them,  and  they  keep  their  beds  two  days,  very 
seldom  three.  Every  year  thousands  undergo  this  operation ; 
and  the  French  ambassador  says  pleasantly,  that  they  take  the 
smallpox  here  by  way  of  diversion,  as  they  take  the  waters  in 
other  countries.  There  is  no  example  of  anyone  that  has 
died  in  it ;  and  you  may  believe  I  am  very  well  satisfied  of  the 
safety  of  this  experiment,  since  I  intend  to  try  it  on  my  dear 
little  son.' 

Oddly  enough,  the  recipient  of  this  information,  Miss  Sarah 
Chiswell,  later  succumbed  to  the  smallpox  —  and  yet  not  so 
oddly  for  in  those  days  to  die  from  smallpox  was 
almost  the  natural  manner  of  dying.  The  '  dear  little  son ' 
in  the  case  was  duly  and  successfully  inoculated,  and  lived  — 
to  become  a  big  scoundrel. 

On  her  return  to  England  in  1722,  Lady  Mary  introduced 
inoculation  by  submitting  her  daughter  to  the  test.  The  vi- 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  197 

vacious  authoress  complained  she  would  like  to  communicate 
with  the  physicians  on  this  topic  if  she  knew  any  '  who  had 
virtue  enough  to  destroy  such  a  considerable  branch  of  their 
revenue  for  the  good  of  mankind/  but  her  first  disciple  was  a 
physician:  Dr  Keith  of  London,  who  also  inoculated  his  own 
daughter.  From  that  time  on,  the  practice  of  inoculation 
came  into  vogue  in  England. 

But  this  production  of  a  modified  form  of  smallpox  in 
order  to  secure  exemption  from  a  more  malignant  attack, 
proved  to  be  only  a  mixed  blessing  at  best,  for  the  inoculated 
person  became  a  source  of  danger  to  his  unprotected  neigh- 
bor. The  inoculated  smallpox  was  fully  as  infectious  as  the 
natural  variola,  and  while  it  conferred  immunity  on  those 
who  availed  themselves  of  the  practice, —  tho  often  with  more 
suffering  than  Lady  Mary's  letter  would  lead  us  to  suppose  — 
it  spread  the  disease  to  great  numbers  who  had  not  been  inocu- 
lated. So  while  with  one  hand  it  did  good,  with  the  other 
it  committed  evil;  it  saved  the  individual  and  menaced  the 
community.  Mankind  felt  that  a  better  prophylactic  must  be 
discovered  before  it  could  cease  to  consider  the  smallpox  the 
worst  of  diseases. 

When  Lady  Mary  passed  out  of  this  world,  venerable  now 
and  white-haired,  a  lively  little  fellow  of  about  twelve  was  al- 
ways willing  to  exhibit  his  collection  of  dormouse's  nests  — 
all  found  by  himself  among  the  bushes  —  but  this  did  not 
mean  that  he  was  certain  to  be  a  great  scientist,  for  child- 
hood is  naturally  curious,  and  every  boy  who  experiments 
in  catching  flies,  or  breaks  an  egg-shell  to  see  why  the  chicken 
doesn't  come  out,  does  not  develop  into  a  Lamarck  or  an 
Hilaire.  Some  of  them  become  politicians,  and  are  averse 
to  all  investigation. 

Youthful  Edward  Jenner  had  none  of  the  eccentricities  of 
genius.  He  did  not  muse,  mope,  or  argue  with  his  nurse  in 
Greek  to  convince  her  that  he  was  precocious.  He  was  not 
like  the  babe  Macaulay  who  smoothed  his  bib  and  said, 
'  Mamma,  industry  is  my  bread,  and  attention  my  butter.' 


198  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

On  his  second  birthday  he  did  not  inquire  what  was  the  pur- 
pose of  life,  and  there  was  nothing  to  distinguish  him  from 
the  other  lads  of  Gloucestershire. 

When  he  grew  older,  he  learnt  the  lure  of  apparel,  and  orna- 
mented himself  with  a  blue  coat  and  yellow  buttons,  the 
sprucest  buckskins  in  the  market,  well-polished  jockey-boots 
whose  silver  spurs  he  often  clanked  together,  a  handsome  whip 
that  smacked  the  air  with  a  whizzing  sound,  and  when  he  re- 
moved his  broad-brimmed  hat  he  revealed  his  hair  stylishly 
done  up  in  a  club. 

He  was  fond  of  society,  being  a  favorite  in  it.  Not  only 
was  he  a  good-natured  and  animated  companion,  but  he  pos- 
sessed those  accomplishments  which  are  immediate  pass- 
ports of  admittance  to  the  shrine  of  conviviality:  he  could 
perform  on  the  violin  and  the  flute,  and  when  properly  urged 
by  the  ladies  he  would  warble  songs  that  he  had  written  him- 
self. His  biographer  assures  us  that  these  verses  were  very 
good,  but  he  makes  the  mistake  of  printing  some  of  them, 
by  which  we  see  that  they  were  only  fairish. 

His  biographer  further  assures  us  that  Jenner  never  played 
cards,  and  while  this  may  be  a  fact  —  as  he  was  the  son  of 
a  clergyman  —  we  must  accept  the  statement  with  suspicion, 
for  biographers  have  the  bad  habit  of  attempting  to  make 
their  heroes  too  respectable.  The  more  we  learn  of  famous 
men,  the  more  do  we  see  that  they  did  not  scorn  what  is 
colloquially  known  as  '  having  a  good  time.'  Gibbon  was  gay 
in  Paris,  and  when  Darwin  was  a  student  at  Cambridge  he 
sometimes  drank  too  much.  '  I  know,'  says  the  author  of 
Origin  of  Species,  '  I  ought  to  feel  ashamed  of  days  and  even- 
ings thus  spent,  but  as  some  of  my  friends  were  very  pleas- 
ant, and  we  were  all  in  the  highest  spirits,  I  cannot  help  look- 
ing back  to  these  times  with  much  pleasure.'  The  average 
freshman  might  quote  the  above  words  in  explaining  to  his 
father  why  his  acquaintance  with  the  college  curriculum  was 
not  more  intimate. 

As  mentioned  above,  Jenner  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman, 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  199 

and  his  mother  was  a  clergyman's  daughter  before  she  be- 
came a  clergyman's  wife;  her  brothers  were  clergymen,  and 
almost  all  his  sisters  married  clergymen,  and  nearly  all  their 
children  became  clergymen,  but  in  spite  of  this  alarming 
situation,  Edward  Jenner  manifested  an  inclination  for  the 
natural  sciences  —  perhaps  his  collections  of  nests  and  fossils 
meant  something  after  all  —  and  he  was  sent  to  Sodbury, 
near  Bristol,  to  learn  surgery  and  pharmacy  under  the  pre- 
ceptorship  of  Daniel  Ludlow. 

While  Jenner  was  working  for  Ludlow,  a  country-girl  came 
there  for  treatment.  Smallpox  was  mentioned  in  her  pres- 
ence, to  which  she  replied,  '  I  cannot  take  that  disease,  for  I 
have  had  cowpox/  The  young  apprentice  happened  to  be  in 
the  room  at  the  time,  and  pricked  up  his  ears  with  interest. 
He  recalled  that  the  farmers  and  dairy-maids  of  Gloucester- 
shire had  the  same  notion.  The  next  day,  while  running  an 
errand  for  his  master,  he  found  himself  thinking  on  the  topic. 

That  Jenner  had  the  scientific  spirit  is  evident  from  an  inci- 
dent which  occurred  long  before  the  chemist  of  Heidelberg 
invented  the  Bunsen  burner:  a  discussion  arose  whether  the 
temperature  of  a  candle  is  higher  in  the  center  of  a  flame  or  at 
a  small  distance  from  its  apex.  Instead  of  indulging  in 
theory,  Jenner  drew  the  candle  towards  him,  and  inserted  his 
finger  in  the  middle  of  the  flame,  keeping  it  there  for  some 
seconds.  He  then  placed  it  a  little  above  the  flame,  but  was 
immediately  compelled  to  withdraw  it.  He  thus  solved  the 
problem  in  a  manner  that  would  have  delighted  John  Hun- 
ter, whose  everlasting  query  was,  '  Why  not  make  the  ex- 
periment ? ' 

In  1770,  being  then  in  his  twenty-first  year,  Jenner  arrived 
in  London,  where  he  became  the  favorite  pupil  of  the  illustri- 
ous teacher  to  whom  we  have  just  referred.  The  follow- 
ing year  Captain  Cook  returned  from  his  first  voyage  of  dis- 
covery, his  ships  loaded  with  specimens  collected  by  Sir 
Joseph  Banks.  Hunter  was  asked  to  name  someone  who 
could  arrange  and  classify  this  museum  of  natural  history, 


200  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

and  he  recommended  his  pupil.  With  such  skill  did  Jenner 
perform  his  work  that  he  was  asked  to  accompany  the  next 
expedition  as  naturalist. 

What  an  opportunity  for  a  youth  of  twenty-two:  to  sail 
around  the  world  in  the  interests  of  science ;  to  enter  unknown 
waters  and  give  names  to  unexplored  territory;  to  gaze  upon 
strange  faces,  and  collect  fossils  in  islands  previously  undis- 
turbed by  the  European ;  to  penetrate  for  the  first  time  a  vir- 
gin forest,  and  chase  a  wild  animal  over  sands  that  never 
knew  a  human  footprint.  Such  prospects  have  made  older 
scientists  sleepless  with  enthusiasm,  but  Edward  Jenner  would 
not  go.  He  was  neither  adventuresome  nor  ambitious,  he 
wished  to  return  to  the  rural  scenes  of  his  childhood,  and 
above  all  he  was  unwilling  to  be  separated  from  his  eldest 
brother.  The  phrase,  '  they  loved  each  other  like  brothers,' 
is  often  received  with  derision,  but  Edward  Jenner  and 
Stephen  Jenner  proved  that  brothers  can  love. 

Jenner  settled  in  Gloucestershire,  in  the  shady  vale  of 
Berkeley,  to  prescribe  tartar  emetic  to  the  neighboring 
farmers.  But  John  Hunter  did  not  permit  him  to  lead  the 
life  of  the  ordinary  village  doctor.  '  I  want,'  wrote  Hunter 
in  a  series  of  letters,  *  a  salmon  that  has  just  spawned;  I  will 
take  a  cock  salmon  when  you  please.  .  .  .  Let  me  have 
some  bats;  try  some  yourself,  open  a  hole  in  the  belly,  and 
observe  the  heat  there,  and  the  fluidity  of  the  blood,  also  see 
if  you  can  catch  the  number  of  pulsations  and  the  frequency 
of  breathing  in  the  bat.  ...  I  thank  you  for  your  ex- 
periments on  the  hedge-hog;  but  why  do  you  ask  me  a  ques- 
tion by  way  of  solving  it?  I  think  your  solution  is  just; 
but  why  think  —  why  not  try  the  experiment  ?  .  .  . 
What  do  you  think  of  examining  eels  ?  Their  sexes  have  not 
yet  been  found  out,  nor  their  mode  of  propagation;  it  is  a 
thing  of  consequence  in  Natural  History.  .  .  .  Next 
spring  I  would  have  you  make  experiments  upon  the  growth 
of  vegetables,  and  if  you  have  no  objection,  I  will  set  you 
upon  a  set  of  experiments  dealing  with  the  heat  of  vegetables 


JENNER 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  SOI 

in  the  winter.  If  in  any  of  these  pursuits  you  discover  any 
principle  worthy  the  public,  I  will  give  it  into  the  Royal  So- 
ciety for  you.  ...  I  received  your  account  of  your  ex- 
periments on  the  hedge-hog,  also  the  dog-fish,  for  which  I 
thank  you.  I  have  now  received  your  account  of  the  aneuris- 
mal  vein  with  the  cast,  and  I  showed  it  to  my  pupils  this  even- 
ing with  the  description.  I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  procure 
the  arm  when  the  man  dies.  .  .  .  If  a  good  deal  of  that 
air  of  the  hog's  guts  could  be  collected,  see  if  a  candle  will 
burn  in  it  as  large  as  in  common  air.  .  .  .  What  are  you 
doing?  how  do  hedge-hogs  go  on? '  Jenner  was  fond  of  this 
research  work,  and  on  his  own  initiative  started  out  to  solve 
the  interesting  problem  why  it  is  that  the  cuckoo  lays  its 
eggs  in  another  bird's  nest. 

But  all  the  while  he  bore  in  mind  the  reputed  prophylactic 
power  of  the  cowpox,  and  listened  to  the  gossip  of  cow- 
herds as  if  he  were  an  antiquarian  collecting  the  folk-lore  of  a 
disappearing  race.  Year  after  year,  with  remarkable  patience, 
he  investigated  every  phase  of  the  distemper.  The  disease 
in  the  cow  was  mild,  and  the  disease  in  man  was  virulent,  so 
Jenner  thought  it  would  be  a  great  thing  if  cowpox  could  be 
transferred  to  the  human  subject  for  the  purpose  of  modify- 
ing the  terrible  smallpox.  One  attack  of  smallpox  usually 
exhausted  the  susceptibility  of  the  constitution  to  a  second  at- 
tack —  the  same  as  scarlet  fever  or  measles  —  and  since,  ar- 
gued Jenner,  the  cowpox  is  only  a  benign  form  of  smallpox, 
why  not  introduce  the  cowpox  virus  into  the  system  of  man 
and  thereby  save  him  from  the  malignant  type? 

To  read  text-books  is  easy  —  if  they  are  written  with  a 
certain  respect  for  grammar  —  but  to  do  research  work  is 
to  grapple  inch  by  inch  with  the  obscure,  and  battle  step  by 
step  with  the  unknown.  Jenner  found  his  path  beset  with 
difficulties  that  would  have  turned  aside  any  man  who  was  not 
a  genuine  scientist.  He  found  that  cows  were  subject  to  a 
variety  of  eruptions  on  their  teats,  all  of  which  were  capable 
of  producing  sores  on  the  hands  of  the  milkers,  but  that  only 


£02  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

certain  of  these  sores  afforded  the  system  protection  against 
smallpox.  The  distinction  of  true  cowpox  from  spurious 
cowpox,  by  explaining  why  cowpox  sometimes  failed  to  pre- 
vent smallpox,  was  a  decided  step  forward.  But  when  fur- 
ther investigation  revealed  to  Jenner  that  some  individuals 
who  had  been  infected  with  what  he  himself  termed  true  cow- 
pox,  later  caught  smallpox,  he  was  in  that  uncomfortable  con- 
dition of  mind  which  only  John  Hunter  enjoyed:  puzzled. 
Tackling  the  matter  again,  he  was  rewarded  by  the  important 
discovery  that  the  virus  of  true  cowpox  is  subject  to  de- 
terioration, and  that  only  during  a  certain  stage  does  it  pos- 
sess the  virtue  of  protecting  the  human  system  against  the  in- 
vasion of  smallpox. 

To  save  the  face  of  mankind  from  the  papule,  vesicle,  pus- 
tule and  crust,  became  the  engrossing  purpose  of  Edward 
Jenner's  life.  At  a  medical  society  to  which  he  belonged  he 
persisted  in  speaking  of  the  protective  power  of  the  cowpox 
so  continually  that  the  other  members  felt  bored  and  threat- 
ened him  with  expulsion. 

His  confreres  were  much  better  pleased  with  him  when 
they  found  him  exhibiting  interest  in  a  subject  which  was  be- 
yond doubt:  a  maiden.  Some  of  his  friends  recalled  and 
quoted  a  proverb  current  since  medieval  times :  '  From  small- 
pox and  love  but  few  remain  free.'  Thereupon  —  altho  it 
was  not  yet  written  —  Jenner  illustrated  that  chapter  of  Dar- 
win's, which  begins,  '  Blushing  is  the  most  peculiar  and  the 
most  human  of  all  expressions.' 

The  lover  was  embarrassed  at  the  raillery,  but  not  dis- 
pleased. There  is  something  agreeable  in  being  bantered  by 
your  friends  about  your  sweetheart.  Nothing  is  plain  and 
direct,  everything  must  be  astute.  The  suppressed  laughter 
and  the  pretended  innocence  are  replete  with  expressiveness, 
while  the  clearing  of  the  throat,  the  arching  of  the  eyebrow, 
and  the  shrugging  of  the  shoulder  are  charged  with  a  mystic 
significance.  It  is  all  so  delightfully  suggestive;  the  charm  of 
badinage  consists  in  its  subtility :  a  wink  speaks  a  volume,  and 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  203 

a  h'm  means  a  treatise.  The  parties  must  be  in  sympathetic 
relations,  en  rapport  as  it  were,  otherwise  there  can  be  no  deli- 
cate play  or  psychic  interchange.  In  short,  teasing  is  a  fine 
art. 

Of  course,  in  such  affairs,  friends  are  always  more  certain 
of  the  outcome  than  the  lover  himself.  Jenner's  friends,  for  in- 
stance, were  sure  he  was  going  to  marry,  but  the  lady  in  the 
case  was  sure  he  wasn't,  for  when  he  proposed,  she  answered, 
1  No,  sir,  but  thank  you  just  the  same.'  The  world  no  longer 
remembers  her,  for  by  refusing  to  become  Jenner's  wife  she 
lost  her  opportunity  of  having  her  name  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica. 

The  matter  has  never  been  satisfactorily  explained,  but  it 
seems  women  do  not  take  kindly  to  unusual  men  —  with  the 
exception  of  Byron.  Every  bar-room  brawler  relates  his 
conquests  of  femininity  by  the  hour,  and  the  clerk,  the  book- 
keeper, and  the  mechanic  —  if  only  he  have  a  starched  dicky 
and  a  spangled  vest  wherewith  to  shine  —  exhibits  trophies 
that  Herbert  Spencer  could  never  have  obtained.  A  nobody 
marries  Beatrice  and  demands  his  slippers,  and  a  nonentity 
becomes  the  lord  of  Laura  and  grumbles  about  his  food,  while 
a  Dante  and  a  Petrarch  must  worship  these  ladies  from  afar. 
It  took  Madame  Hanska  many  years  to  decide  whether  she 
was  willing  to  marry  Balzac,  and  John  Keats  could  get  no 
satisfaction  from  Fanny  Brawne,  while  any  traveling  sales- 
man whose  tie  matches  his  socks,  could  have  carried  off  the  girl 
in  three  weeks.  Goffredo  Mameli's  love  was  not  returned, 
and  Miss  Aloysia  Weber  said  '  Never ! '  to  Mozart  —  and 
meant  it. 

Montaigne's  famous  *  pillow  of  doubt '  was  soft  indeed 
when  compared  to  the  pillow  of  unreturned  love  on  which 
Edward  Jenner  now  lay.  '  Never  mind,'  wrote  John  Hunter, 
'  let  her  go.  I  shall  employ  you  with  hedge-hogs.'  It  was 
fortunate  for  Hunter  that  he  was  Hunter,  otherwise  he  would 
have  received  a  wrathful  reply,  for  to  a  youth  in  a  sentimental 
mood  nothing  is  so  distasteful  as  humor.  Jenner  was  really 


204 

disappointed,  and  as  is  natural  at  such  junctures,  contemplated 
suicide,  and  as  is  also  natural,  did  not  commit  it.  But  many 
years  were  to  pass  before  he  forgot  his  first  flame,  for  un- 
like the  average  male,  Jenner  was  not  an  expert  in  the  art 
of  transferring  his  affections.  Neither  could  he  draw  any 
relief  from  the  popular  adage,  '  There  is  as  good  fish  in  the 
sea  as  ever  was  caught.' 

Yet  Father  Time,  a  greater  physician  that  even  Hippoc- 
rates, gradually  healed  his  wounds,  and  precisely  when  his 
friends  were  convinced  that  he  was  going  to  remain  a  bachelor, 
Jenner  again  felt  the  glorious  spring-time  stir  within  him. 
On  this  propitious  occasion  his  feelings  were  reciprocated, 
and  at  the  proper  time  a  happy  Yes  faltered  from  the  lips 
of  Miss  Catherine  Kingscote,  who  is  described  as  possessing 
elegant  manners  and  other  virtues.  How  Jenner  would  have 
fared  with  his  first  lady-love  we  cannot  say,  but  we  know 
that  his  long  married  life  with  Catherine  was  ideal  from  first 
to  last,  which  proves  that  a  man  should  never  commit  suicide 
when  he  is  rejected  only  once. 

Along  the  road  that  runs  between  Gloucester  and  Bristol, 
two  companions  were  riding,  engaged  in  conversation.  The 
earnestness  with  which  the  elder  spoke  of  exterminating  small- 
pox revealed  his  identity.  '  Gardner/  said  Jenner,  '  I  have 
entrusted  a  most  important  matter  to  you,  which  I  firmly  be- 
lieve will  prove  of  essential  benefit  to  the  human  race.  I  know 
you,  and  should  not  wish  what  I  have  stated  to  be  brought 
into  conversation;  for  should  anything  untoward  turn  up  in 
my  experiments,  I  should  be  made,  particularly  by  my  medical 
brethren,  the  subject  of  ridicule  —  for  I  am  the  mark  they  all 
shoot  at.' 

As  the  solution  of  the  great  problem  grew  nearer  and 
nearer,  the  inner  life  of  Jenner  became  intense.  He  rambled 
thru  the  meadows,  near  the  ancient  ruined  castle  of  Berkeley, 
silent  and  alone,  but  the  frequent  flashing  of  his  eye  disclosed 
the  fire  that  was  burning  within  him,  and  the  involuntary 
raising  of  his  hand,  as  if  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  some- 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  205 

thing  sacred,  indicated  that  he  was  overpowered  with  emo- 
tion. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  his  excitement  if  we  invoke 
the  ghost  of  smallpox  that  terrorized  our  forefathers.  For 
centuries  smallpox  was  the  vastest  horror  that  plagued  the  hu- 
man race.  At  the  tables  of  man  no  other  evil  and  unwelcome 
guest  was  so  familiar  and  so  dreaded.  During  that  long 
period  no  mother  counted  her  children  till  all  had  passed  thru 
smallpox.  In  those  days  the  young  men  sighed,  '  Oh,  for  a 
mistress  who  is  not  pock-marked ! ' 

From  its  ravages  no  one  was  safe.  It  granted  no  favor  to 
the  old,  it  smote  the  middle-aged,  it  struck  down  the  young, 
it  scarred  the  babe  in  the  womb.  None  were  so  lowly  as  to  be 
passed  by  without  notice,  none  so  powerful  as  to  enjoy  im- 
munity. Not  only  did  it  stalk  thru  the  narrow  alley,  but  it 
walked  abroad  on  the  boulevard.  It  lay  on  the  toiler's  cot  of 
straw,  and  parted  the  purple  curtains  of  the  emperor's  bed- 
stead. Long  before  socialism  was  heard  of,  smallpox  pro- 
claimed, '  Special  privileges  to  none.' 

Elfrida,  Alfred's  daughter,  the  wife  of  Baldwin  the  Bald, 
was  attacked  by  smallpox,  and  her  grandson  succumbed  to 
the  malady.  It  touched  the  fifteenth  Louis  of  France,  and 
the  king  rolled  from  his  throne  to  the  grave.  It  maimed  and 
crippled  William  the  Third  of  England,  and  ended  the  life  of 
his  young  and  beautiful  Queen.  On  the  same  day  it  ordered 
coffins  for  Mary  in  the  almshouse  and  Mary  in  the  palace  — 
pauper-woman  and  royal-lady  equally  speckled  with  pock- 
holes. 

If  I  wan  Bloch  is  correct  in  assuming  that  syphilis  had  its 
origin  in  America  and  was  introduced  into  Europe  by  the 
crew  of  Columbus,  we  may  ask  if  it  is  not  unfortunate  that 
America  was  ever  discovered.  The  licentiousness  of  im- 
perial Rome  in  the  fifth  century  was  followed  by  the  invasions 
of  Huns  and  Vandals,  but  the  libertinism  of  southern  Europe 
in  the  fifteenth  century  was  followed  by  the  worse  invasions 
of  chancres  and  tertiary  lesions.  But  certainly  the  pale- faces 


206  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

had  no  ground  for  complaint,  for  tho  the  Indian  women  may 
have  surprised  the  Spaniards  with  a  new  disease,  the  gallant 
dons  squared  up  matters  by  bringing  to  America  the  scourge 
of  smallpox. 

When  smallpox  conquered  America,  the  empire  of  the 
monarch  of  diseases  was  universal.  No  corner  of  the  earth 
was  now  safe  from  the  pock-mark.  Everywhere  it  excited  a 
common  terror  that  made  the  whole  world  kin.  With  swift 
feet  that  traveled  from  household  to  household,  with  many- 
fingered  hands  that  clutched  the  passer-by,  with  its  impalpable 
poison  carried  by  the  atmosphere,  and  blown  abroad  by  the 
winds,  smallpox  seemed  like  an  eternal  biblical  curse. 

Falling  upon  the  natives  of  Mexico,  it  destroyed  six  million 
inhabitants  with  the  same  fury  that  it  had  decimated  China 
in  the  pre-Christian  era.  The  naked  savage  squatting  on  the 
equator,  and  the  fur-clad  Eskimo  of  the  arctic  circle,  were 
equally  apprehensive  of  its  approach.  It  entered  uninvited 
the  wigwams  that  dotted  our  western  prairies,  and  made  it- 
self at  home  among  the  straw-thatched  huts  of  the  African. 
It  thinned  the  population  of  Ceylon,  and  in  many  districts  of 
Iceland  there  were  not  sufficient  survivors  to  bury  the  dead. 

In  the  course  of  ages,  the  human  race  accumulated  such 
fear  of  the  eruptive  fever  that  when  the  epidemic  swooped 
upon  the  crowded  communities  of  civilization  there  were  times 
when  sick  infants  cried  in  vain  for  mothers  who  had  fled. 
When  its  pimpled  visage  appeared  in  the  untamed  forest  an 
Indian  father  would  call  his  family  together,  speak  to  them  of 
the  evil  spirit  which  was  torturing  the  tribes,  and  pointing 
to  the  dehumanized  features  of  those  already  attacked,  would 
exhort  his  children  to  escape  a  similar  fate  by  falling  upon 
their  own  daggers,  promising  them  if  they  lacked  the  cour- 
age that  he  himself  as  a  last  proof  of  his  devotion  would  do 
the  deed  of  mercy,  and  at  once  follow  them  to  the  happier 
land. 

'  Smallpox,'  wrote  Macaulay,  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his 
History  of  England,  '  was  then  the  most  terrible  of  all  the 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  207 

ministers  of  death.  The  havoc  of  the  plague  was  far 
more  rapid :  but  the  plague  visited  our  shores  only  once  or 
twice  within  living  memory;  and  the  smallpox  was  always 
present,  filling  the  churchyards  with  corpses,  tormenting  with 
constant  fears  all  whom  it  had  not  yet  stricken,  leaving  on 
those  whose  lives  it  spared  the  hideous  traces  of  its  power, 
turning  the  babe  into  a  changeling  at  which  the  mother  shud- 
dered, and  making  the  eyes  and  cheeks  of  the  betrothed 
maiden  objects  of  horror  to  the  lover/ 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  exhaust  our  vocabulary,  or  to  quote 
eminent  historians,  when  the  plain  Arabic  numerals  are  more 
eloquent.  In  preceding  centuries,  about  10  per  cent,  of  all 
deaths  were  attributable  to  smallpox.  In  the  single 
year  1796,  the  smallpox  carried  off  30,000  of  Prussia's  in- 
habitants, and  about  the  same  number  were  annually  de- 
stroyed in  France.  Iceland  was  invaded  in  1707  by  smallpox 
which  caused  in  that  one  year  the  loss  of  18,000  out  of  a 
population  of  50,000.  In  regions  as  widely  separated  as 
Brazil  and  Kamschatka  whole  races  of  men  became  extinct 
thru  the  fearful  fatality  of  this  disease.  Sir  Alexander 
Crichton  calculated  that  annually  every  seventh  child  born 
in  Russia  died  of  smallpox.  Bernoulli  figured  that  every 
twenty-five  years  it  deprived  not  fewer  than  15,000,000  hu- 
man beings  of  life.  These  numbers  correspond  to  the  esti- 
mation that  has  been  made  that  in  the  eighteenth  century 
alone  smallpox  killed  at  least  60,000,000  men,  women,  and 
children.  Death  statistics,  however,  tell  only  a  portion  of  the 
damage  done,  for  millions  of  the  so-called  survivors,  weak- 
ened, crippled,  sightless,  became  subject  to  half  the  path- 
ologic terms  found  in  a  medical  dictionary. 

In  those  stricken  days,  if  a  messenger  had  come  from 
heaven,  and  standing  on  earth's  highest  hill  had  clarioned  to 
all  mortals,  '  From  the  long  roll  of  human  evils  I  shall  re- 
move one  disease:  which  shall  it  be?' — one  universal  voice 
would  have  ascended  in  answer,  the  desire  of  kings  blending 
with  the  prayer  of  peasants,  the  cultured  accents  of  the 


208  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

scholar  mingling  with  the  cry  of  the  man  of  the  streets: 
*  Smallpox ! ' 

And  now  a  humble  village  doctor  expected  to  conquer  this 
monster  by  a  bit  of  virus  on  the  point  of  an  ivory  lancet. 

A  dairy-maid  named  Sarah  Nelmes,  who  had  been  pricked 
by  a  thorn,  and  become  infected  with  cowpox  while  milking 
her  master's  kine,  was  his  medium.  On  the  fourteenth  of 
May,  1796,  Jenner  took  matter  from  her  hand  and  inserted  it 
by  two  superficial  incisions  into  the  arm  of  James  Phipps,  a 
healthy  boy  of  eight.  This  was  the  first  vaccination.  On 
the  first  of  the  following  July  virulent  smallpox  matter  that 
would  have  killed  any  unprotected  lad  in  the  world  was  intro- 
duced into  this  arm,  but  without  the  slightest  effect,  for  Phipps 
had  been  vaccinated!  This  was  the  crucial  experiment. 

The  vaccine  virus  could  be  passed  from  one  human  being 
to  another;  it  was  safe  in  itself,  and  endangered  no  one  by 
contagion;  the  experimentation  of  twenty-five  years  was 
over;  the  problems  were  solved  and  ready  for  publication; 
a  gate  of  death  was  closing  —  smallpox  would  become  a  dis- 
ease of  the  past.  That  day  the  gossips  of  Berkeley  who 
lingered  by  the  village  pump  greeted  Jenner  as  he  passed,  but 
did  not  know  that  their  fellow-townsman  had  made  the  world 
a  safer  habitation  for  the  race  of  man. 

The  printer  now  became  an  important  personage,  and  when 
all  matters  were  arranged,  a  quarto  of  about  seventy  pages 
appeared,  An  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  and  Effects  of  Variolae 
Vaccinae.  This  was  the  name  which  Jenner  had  given  to  the 
cowpox  to  indicate  that  he  regarded  it  merely  a  variety  of  the 
variola,  modified  by  passing  thru  the  bovine  species.  The 
quarto  contained  an  engraving  of  the  hand  of  Sarah  Nelmes, 
showing  the  position  and  development  of  the  pustules.  It  is 
a  rather  delicate  hand,  with  tapering  feminine  fingers.  Were 
it  not  for  the  pustulous  sores  on  it,  a  poet  might  write  a  son- 
net to  this  hand  —  the  hand  that  helped  to  halt  a  plague. 

The  first  enthusiast  in  the  cause  of  vaccination  seems  to 
have  been  the  surgeon  Henry  Cline,  who  urged  Jenner  to 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  209 

come  to  London  immediately,  painting  in  glowing  colors  the 
future  that  awaited  him.  But  Jenner  was  now  fifty  years  of 
age,  and  peaceful  Berkeley  was  good  enough  for  him.  Pros- 
pects of  gold  and  glory  could  not  lure  him  to  the  Strand.  He 
wrote  to  Cline  that  even  in  the  morning  of  his  days  he  had 
sought  the  lowly  and  sequestered  paths  of  life,  the  valley 
and  not  the  mountain,  and  now  the  evening  was  fast  ap- 
proaching, and  he  would  not  hold  himself  up  as  an  object  for 
fortune  and  for  fame. 

But  when  his  nephew  George,  who  was  in  London  at  the 
time,  informed  him  that  a  person  named  Pearson  was  push- 
ing himself  forward  as  the  chief  agent  of  vaccination,  but 
knew  so  little  of  the  whole  subject  that  he  distributed  virus 
contaminated  with  smallpox,  Jenner  was  aroused.  When  he 
further  learnt  that  Dr  Pearson  had  secretly  organized  an  in- 
stitution for  vaccine  inoculation,  and  when  that  enterprising 
gentleman  had  the  effrontery  to  offer  him  the  position  of  ex- 
tra-corresponding physician,  Jenner  said,  '  Catherine,  where 
is  that  valise  of  mine?  ' 

Jenner  hurried  to  London,  and  induced  Lord  Egremont 
and  the  Duke  of  York  to  withdraw  their  patronage  from 
Pearson's  institution.  The  modern  Icarus  found  he  had 
soared  too  near  the  sun,  for  his  waxen  wings  melted,  and 
he  was  drowned  in  the  sea  of  obloquy. 

It  was  inevitable  that  vaccination  should  arouse  antag- 
onism, both  from  the  profession  and  the  laity.  Of  course  one 
clergyman  declared  that  the  practice  was  as  old  as  the  Bible, 
and  the  reason  Job  had  so  many  boils  was  because  the  Devil 
had  vaccinated  him,  while  another  preacher  solemnly  assured 
his  parishioners  that  God  sent  smallpox  into  the  world  be- 
cause Adam  and  his  wife  liked  pippins.  Dr  Moseley  claimed 
that  communication  with  beasts  might  corrupt  the  mind  and 
excite  incongruous  passions;  while  William  Rowley,  who 
seemed  to  believe  in  clinical  demonstrations,  exhibited  a  boy 
with  a  swollen  face  at  one  of  his  lectures,  and  explained  the 
case  as  follows :  '  On  this  cheek  you  plainly  perceive  a  pro- 


210 

tuberance  arising  like  a  sprouting  horn;  another  correspond- 
ing one  will  shortly  spring  up  on  the  other  side;  for  this  boy 
is  gradually  losing  human  lineaments  and  his  countenance  is 
transmuting  into  the  visage  of  a  cow/ 

But  anyone  conversant  with  the  History  of  Medicine,  who 
contemplates  for  a  moment  the  reception  of  other  medical  dis- 
coveries, is  astonished,  not  at  the  opposition  which  vaccina- 
tion engendered,  but  that  the  opposition  was  so  slight  and 
cursory.  Smallpox  was  so  terrible,  that  vaccination  was 
given  a  trial,  and  in  hamlet  and  metropolis  its  beneficial  ef- 
fects were  immediate.  The  ivory  lancet  was  a  magic  wand 
which  checked  the  approach  of  the  epidemic.  The  medical 
dream  of  a  Diseaseless  Future  moved  one  notch  nearer  its 
realization. 

To  say  that  vaccination  spread  like  a  new  gospel  would  not 
express  the  situation,  for  even  the  most  prevalent  religions 
are  limited  by  geographical  lines.  Whether  a  child  grows  up 
to  be  a  Nirvana-loving  Buddhist,  or  a  votary  of  Voodooism; 
whether  he  is  to  be  a  Baptist  and  consider  immersion  essential 
to  salvation,  or  a  Catholic  and  evade  the  butcher  on  Friday; 
whether  he  follows  Confucius,  or  swears  that  Mahomet  is 
the  prophet;  whether  he  is  to  weep  for  Jerusalem  in  a  Jew- 
ish synagogue,  or  believes  that  the  Mormon  God  commanded 
Joseph  Smith  to  love  several  women  simultaneously,  depends 
very  much  on  the  longitude  of  his  birthplace  and  the  the- 
ological proclivities  of  his  nurse. 

But  vaccination  overrode  all  boundaries  and  mixed  with 
all  men.  A  British  ship  sailed  from  Portsmouth  to  Gibraltar, 
and  vaccinated  the  soldiers  of  the  garrison.  Dr  Marshall 
vaccinated  his  own  children  and  then  introduced  the  practice 
into  Naples  and  Palermo,  where  the  superstitious  inhabitants 
declared  it  '  a  blessing  sent  from  Heaven,  tho  discovered  by 
one  heretic  and  practised  by  another.'  Dr  John  Walker  vac- 
cinated Abercrombie's  army  in  Egypt;  the  three  children  of 
Helenus  Scott  were  the  first  to  be  vaccinated  in  India,  and 
thereafter  the  Doctor  vaccinated  thousands:  the  Hindoos,  on 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  211 

account  of  their  veneration  for  the  cow,  considered  Vaccina 
a  new  divinity.  Dr  de  Carro,  who  had  succeeded  in  import- 
ing the  virus  into  Bombay,  likewise  introduced  Jennerian  in- 
oculation into  Vienna,  Lombardy,  and  Poland.  Marcet 
transmitted  the  vaccine  to  Copenhagen,  and  smallpox  dis- 
appeared from  Denmark  and  Sweden.  Princess  Louisa  of 
Prussia  was  inoculated,  and  an  Inoculation  Institute  was  es- 
tablished in  Berlin.  Count  de  Salm  offered  a  reward  to  the 
physician  who  vaccinated  the  largest  number  in  Moravia  and 
Bohemia.  Lord  Elgin,  ambassador  to  the  Porte,  had  his  in- 
fant son  vaccinated :  the  gift  which  England  had  received 
from  Turkey,  it  returned  a  thousand-fold.  The  practice  en- 
tered the  Seraglio,  and  the  Grand  Seignior,  who  had  suffered 
much  from  smallpox,  sighed  that  the  discovery  had  not  been 
made  in  his  early  days.  Over  the  Bosphorus,  and  across  sandy 
deserts,  the  vaccine  was  conveyed,  traveling  along  the  banks 
of  the  Tigris  to  spread  its  blessings  to  Persia.  Greek, 
Armenian  and  Parsee  brought  their  children  to  receive  the 
virus.  In  the  Peloponnesus  and  in  Poonah  the  name  of  Jen- 
ner  was  lauded  to  the  skies.  The  history  of  the  discovery  was 
published  in  Bengalese  and  in  Sanscrit.  Ceylon  had  been  rav- 
aged frightfully  by  smallpox,  and  in  one  district  and  in  one 
month  Thomas  Cristie  vaccinated  two  thousand  natives.  Dr 
Grahl  spread  it  thru  Siberia,  and  no  wall  could  prevent  the 
Chinese  from  coming  in  swarms  with  arms  bared  for  the  vac- 
cine. The  Spanish  government,  usually  so  backward,  fitted  out 
an  expedition  which  carried  vaccine  around  the  globe.  Ben- 
jamin Waterhouse  introduced  vaccination  in  the  United  States, 
and  sent  a  sample  of  the  virus  to  the  brainiest  President  that 
ever  sat  in  the  White  House :  Thomas  Jefferson  with  his  own 
hand  vaccinated  over  a  hundred  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

Then  occurred  something  unique  and  unparalleled  in  the 
annals  of  medicine.  In  Upper  Canada,  the  grateful  Indians, 
the  Five  Nations,  the  Mohawks,  the  Onondagas,  the  Senecas, 
the  Oneidas,  the  Cayugas,  gathered  together  to  pay  tribute  to 
Jenner : 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

'  Brother !  Our  Father  has  delivered  to  us  the  book  you  sent 
to  instruct  us  how  to  use  the  discovery  which  the  Great  Spirit 
made  to  you,  whereby  the  smallpox,  that  fatal  enemy  of  our 
tribes,  may  be  driven  from  the  earth.  We  have  deposited  your 
book  in  the  hands  of  the  man  of  skill  whom  our  great  Father 
employs  to  attend  us  when  sick  or  wounded.  We  shall  not  fail 
to  teach  our  children  to  speak  the  name  of  Jenner;  and 
to  thank  the  Great  Spirit  for  bestowing  upon  him  so 
much  wisdom  and  so  much  benevolence.  We  send  with 
this  a  belt  and  string  of  wampum,  in  token  of  our  ac- 
ceptance of  your  precious  gift;  and  we  beseech  the  Great 
Spirit  to  take  care  of  you  in  this  world  and  in  the  land  of 
Spirits/ 

Crowned  potentates,  from  the  King  of  Spain  and  the 
Emperor  of  France  down  to  the  Queen  of  Etruria  and  the 
Hospodar  of  Moldavia,  were  desirous  of  honoring  Edward 
Jenner.  A  certificate  signed  by  Jenner,  declaring  that  the 
bearer  was  abroad  merely  for  his  health,  had  the  authority  of 
a  passport.  The  King  of  England  gave  him  permission  to 
dedicate  the  second  edition  of  his  Inquiry  to  him,  but  in  Jen- 
ner's  flattering  description  of  the  monarch  as  '  the  Father  of 
his  People/  and  in  his  reference  to  his  '  paternal  care  for  the 
dearest  interest  of  humanity,'  we  would  hardly  recognize  the 
brutal  George  III.  The  Empress  of  Russia  wrote  a  personal 
letter  to  Jenner  and  sent  him  a  ring  studded  with  diamonds. 
She  ordered  that  the  first  child  vaccinated  in  Russia  be  named 
Vaccinoff,  and  be  educated  at  the  expense  of  the  State.  Later, 
Jenner  met  the  Czar  himself,  and  related  with  some  gusto  that 
he  was  the  first  person  who  ever  dared  contradict  the  auto- 
crat. During  the  war  between  England  and  France,  Jenner 
petitioned  for  the  release  of  some  British  prisoners ;  Napoleon 
refused  the  request,  and  Josephine  mentioned  that  it  was  Jen- 
ner who  wished  it  '  Ah/  said  Napoleon,  '  we  can  refuse  noth- 
ing to  that  man.'  Jenner  was  introduced  to  so  many  members 
of  the  aristocracy,  that  he  must  have  grown  tired  of  saying 
Your  Grace  and  Your  Royal  Highness,  but  when  a  Countess 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  213 

brought  him  a  hookah,  no  doubt  he  promised  to  smoke  it  all 
his  life. 

The  fame  which  was  Jenner's  during  the  latter  period  of  his 
life,  so  different  from  the  obscurity  of  his  first  fifty  years,  never 
upset  him.  He  remained  simple  and  unaffected  to  the  last. 
He  could  not  learn  to  love  the  busy,  crowded,  gloomy,  com- 
mercial streets  of  London,  and  he  was  never  so  happy  as  when 
he  could  steal  away  to  Berkeley  by  the  side  of  Mrs  Jenner. 
Only  one  woman  in  the  world  existed  for  Jenner,  and  she  was 
his  wife. 

In  the  days  when  temples  were  erected  to  Jenner,  when  re- 
ligious processions  marched  shouting  his  name,  when  men 
begged  for  a  pattern  of  his  coat  that  they  might  wear  the  same 
garb  on  his  birthday,  Jenner  heard  that  his  oldest  son  was  ill, 
and  immediately  he  left  for  home.  Important  letters  from 
London  failed  to  move  him.  '  In  this  unfortunate  situation/ 
he  wrote,  '  I  should  be  unworthy  of  the  name  of  father  were  I 
to  stir  from  my  children.  Indeed,  nothing  would  make  me, 
not  even  a  royal  mandate,  unless  accompanied  by  a  troop  of 
horse.' 

He  ended  as  he  began  —  the  best  type  of  the  country  doctor. 
On  many  wintry  nights,  and  over  many  a  stormy  road,  he 
urged  his  horse  to  the  huts  of  the  poor  —  often  without  a  fee. 
Contact  with  royalty  had  failed  to  contaminate  him.  Edward 
Jenner  was  a  man.  When  he  was  molded,  the  potter  used 
finer  stuff  than  went  into  the  making  of  Whitelaw  Reid,  the 
American  Sycophant  to  the  Court  of  Saint  James. 

That  Jenner  should  continually  have  conducted  himself  with 
such  simplicity  and  dignity,  speaks  well  for  the  natural 
grandeur  of  his  character,  for  his  was  not  an  intellect  of  the 
first  order.  He  was  a  skilled  observer,  a  successful  experi- 
mentalist, but  no  thinker.  He  had  not  a  tithe  of  the  mental 
reach  of  the  man  who  first  used  the  term  '  agnostic,'  and  in  all 
phases  of  rational  and  abstract  philosophy  he  was  a  babe.  No 
problems  of  the  origin  of  our  species,  or  of  its  ultimate  des- 
tiny, ever  perplexed  his  mind.  He  believed  an  answer  to  all 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

such  questions  could  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Moses.  Jen- 
ner  was  born  in  the  same  year  that  gave  birth  to  Laplace  and 
Goethe,  and  when  we  consider  how  the  Frenchman  speculated 
in  the  science  of  the  skies,  constructing  a  system  of  the  uni- 
verse without  the  hypothesis  of  God,  and  when  we  recall  the 
German's  endless  intellectual  sweep,  formulating  in  a  manner 
even  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  Jenner's  limitations  become 
apparent. 

But  in  view  of  Jenner's  practical  work  it  would  be  as  un- 
just to  dwell  upon  his  theoretical  shortcomings  as  it  would 
be  to  emphasize  Alfred  Russel  Wallace's  fall  from  Science 
to  Spiritualism.  Men  far  greater  than  Jenner  have  done  far 
less  for  human  happiness  than  he.  Jenner  made  the  most 
dreaded  of  maladies  the  least  feared.  Mankind  is  now  more 
afraid  of  a  cold  in  the  head  than  of  smallpox.  Even  in  the 
poorest  sections  of  our  cities  we  would  have  to  walk  long  to 
come  across  a  pitted  servant-girl.  Measles  bends  over  every 
cradle;  the  bacillus  that  Koch  saw  in  1 88 1  is  as  much  a  men- 
ace to-day  as  it  was  twenty-five  centuries  ago,  when  Hippoc- 
rates called  consumption  the  most  dangerous  disease;  every 
autumn  typhoid  relentlessly  claims  its  victims ;  on  many  doors 
the  Board  of  Health  tacks  up  the  sign  '  Scarlet  Fever ' ;  and 
the  swift  and  sudden  onslaught  of  pneumonia  carries  desola- 
tion in  its  wide  trail ;  but  so  effectual  has  been  Jenner's  discov- 
ery that  many  active  physicians  of  the  present  generation 
have  never  seen  a  single  case  of  smallpox.  The  invalid  once 
so  common  —  bloated  and  puffy  with  pustules;  his  skin  cov- 
ered with  crusts  that  fell  off  only  to  reveal  scars  that  were 
permanent;  itching,  vomiting,  delirious;  vile  to  the  smell  and 
hideous  to  the  sight;  exhausted,  feverish,  trying  to  pick  the 
bedclothes  with  flexed  and  stiffened  fingers;  with  boils  and 
abscesses  in  uncomfortable  places,  hair  coming  out,  and  the 
mouth  held  half  open  because  of  the  edema  of  the  buccal 
mucous  membranes;  staring  apathetically  thru  a  swollen 
and  yellowish  mask,  with  ulcers  where  eyes  should  be  — 
this  exemplification  of  agony  and  wretchedness  has  become 


JENNER  AND  VACCINATION  215 

almost  obsolete  because   Edward  Jenner  lived  and   worked. 

Modern  sanitation  has  accomplished  wonders  —  a  thousand 
victories  of  medical  science  are  summed  up  in  that  one  word 
—  but  hygiene  cannot  account  for  the  practical  extermination 
of  the  shotty  papule.  Smallpox  never  feared  soap  and  water, 
and  was  as  apt  to  infect  a  bathing  beauty  as  Simeon  Stylities. 
Only  one  agent  can  keep  the  smallpox  in  check,  and  that  is 
vaccination.  And  vaccination  has  done  it  so  well  that  we 
have  forgotten  what  smallpox  means,  and  therefore  we  sit 
back  securely  and  form  anti-vaccination  societies.  But  let 
the  vaccine  virus  be  withheld  from  our  bodies,  and  before 
many  a  moon  waxes  and  wanes,  the  pock-marked  face  will 
greet  us  on  every  street-corner. 

After  the  decease  of  his  wife,  Jenner  retired  almost  com- 
pletely from  the  world.  Alone,  at  sunset,  he  would  climb 
Barrow  Hill  and  watch  the  Severn  at  its  highest  tide.  From 
the  summit  he  could  see  the  forest  of  Dean,  and  afar  off  glis- 
tened the  Bristol  Channel,  where  sometimes  a  ship  glided  past 
in  the  twilight.  Here  he  would  linger  till  the  orchards  faded 
from  view,  and  the  oaks  grew  dim  and  ghostly,  and  the  cliff 
which  rose  from  the  river-side  could  be  seen  no  more. 

His  life  too  was  sinking  below  the  hills,  soon  to  be  en- 
shrouded in  darkness.  He  died  where  an  intellectual  man 
should  die  —  in  his  library.  The  village  which  gave  him 
birth  received  his  illustrious  ashes.  When  his  wornout  body 
was  laid  at  rest,  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  some  humble 
woman,  whose  child  he  had  saved  from  smallpox,  imagined 
that  Edward  Jenner  had  gone  to  heaven  —  to  vaccinate  the 
angels. 


(1781-1826) 
LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION 

It  is  quite  improbable,  I  think,  that  we  should  be  here  to-day,  or,  in- 
deed, have  an  existence  as  a  society  largely  devoted  to  the  consideration 
of  diseases  of  the  chest,  were  it  not  for  the  methods  of  thoracic  exam- 
ination which  Avenbrugger  and  Laennec  have  given  us  in  their  discover- 
ies of  percussion  and  auscultation.  Without  these  two  precious  methods 
of  investigation  we  could  scarcely  have  arrived  at  any  degree  of  precision 
or  certainty  in  thoracic  pathology. 

—  EDWARD  O.  OTIS. 

LEOPOLD  AVENBRUGGER  was  no  fool;  he  had  read  history, 
and  he  knew  the  usual  fate  of  the  innovator :  the  contumelious 
stone  during  life,  and  a  monument  after  death.  Therefore, 
when  sending  his  Inventum  Novum  out  into  the  world,  he 
wrote  this  little  preface: 

*  I  present  to  the  reader  a  new  sign  for  the  detection  of  diseases 
of  the  chest,  which  I  have  discovered.  It  consists  in  the  percus- 
sion of  the  human  thorax  and  the  determination  of  the  internal 
condition  of  this  cavity  by  the  varying  resonance  of  the  sounds 
thus  produced.  My  discoveries  in  this  subject  are  not  committed 
to  paper  because  of  an  itch  for  writing,  nor  an  inordinate  desire 
for  theorizing.  Seven  years  of  observation  have  put  the  subject 
in  order  and  have  clarified  it  for  myself  and  now  I  feel  that  it 
should  be  published. 

'  I  foresee  very  well  that  I  shall  encounter  no  little  opposition  to 
my  views  and  I  put  my  invention  before  the  public  with  that 
anticipation.  I  realize,  however,  that  envy  and  blame,  and  even 
hatred  and  calumny  have  never  failed  to  come  to  men  who  have 
illuminated  art  or  science  by  discoveries  or  have  added  to  their 
perfection.  I  expect  to  have  to  submit  to  this  danger  myself,  but 
I  think  that  no  one  will  be  able  to  call  any  of  my  observations  to 
account.  I  have  written  only  what  I  have  myself  learned  by 
personal  observation  over  and  over  again,  and  what  my  senses 
have  taught  me  during  long  hours  of  toil.  I  have  never  per- 

219 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

mitted  myself  to  add  or  subtract  anything  from  my  observations 
because  of  the  seductions  of  preconceived  theory. 

'  I  would  not  wish,  however,  that  anyone  should  think  that  this 
method  of  diagnosis,  which  I  suggest,  has  been  developed  to  its 
utmost  perfection.  I  confess  with  all  candor  that  there  are  de- 
fects which  conscientious  observation  will,  I  hope,  amend  with 
time.  It  is  possible  that  there  are  even  other  important  truths 
for  the  recognition  of  disease  still  hidden  from  this  method  of 
diagnosis.  Some  of  these  may  prove  of  great  usefulness  for  the 
differentiation,  prognosis  and  cure  of  diseases  of  the  chest. 

'  This  was  the  reason  why  in  my  personal  experience,  after  I 
had  succeeded  in  finding  the  signs  in  the  chest  and  proceeded 
further  to  the  investigation  of  their  causes  so  far  as  my  own  ob- 
servation could  help  me,  I  have  always  afterward  had  recourse  to 
the  commentaries  of  the  most  illustrious  Baron  Van  Swieten, 
since  I  have  considered  that  whatever  can  be  desired  by  an  ob- 
servant man  is  sure  to  be  found  in  his  work.  I  have  thus  been 
able  to  spare  you  a  long  disquisition.  I  have  found  in  his  work  a 
sure  basis  of  knowledge  on  which  my  slight  superstructure  may  be 
raised  up  to  view. 

'  I  do  not  doubt,  however,  that  I  have  accomplished  a  work 
which  will  earn  the  gratitude  of  all  true  devotees  of  the  art  of 
medicine,  since  I  have  succeeded  in  making  clear  certain  things 
which  shed  not  a  little  light  on  our  knowledge  of  the  obscure 
diseases  of  the  chest,  a  subject  hitherto  very  imperfectly  under- 
stood. 

'  I  have  omitted  many  things  that  seem  doubtful  because  they 
are  as  yet  not  sufficiently  elaborated.  I  shall  endeavor,  however, 
faithfully  to  devote  myself  to  the  further  development  of  these 
points.  Finally,  it  has  not  been  my  effort  to  write  in  any  elegant 
diction.  I  have  chosen  a  style  in  which  I  may  be  thoroly  under- 
stood.' 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  foreword  Avenbrugger  refers 
to  his  teacher,  and  thruout  the  monograph  the  name  of  Van 
Swieten  is  mentioned  with  the  greatest  respect.  Van  Swieten 
certainly  had  merits  as  a  medical  man:  when  he  was  called 
over  from  Holland,  the  Austrian  throne  had  no  heir;  but 
Van  Swieten  drew  the  husband  aside,  gave  him  some  private 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  331 

instruction,  with  the  result  that  Maria  Theresa  became  preg- 
nant sixteen  times.  Van  Swieten  spent  most  of  his  life  writ- 
ing eight  huge  volumes  of  commentaries  on  the  aphorisms  of 
his  master  Boerhaave,  and  tho  some  say  that  the  commen- 
taries are  more  valuable  than  the  aphorisms,  neither  one  nor 
the  other  is  now  read.  Van  Swieten  wrote  much  on  the  dis- 
eases of  the  chest,  but  he  did  not  mention  percussion.  The 
eminent  doctor  saw  no  use  in  tapping  the  thorax.  He  did  not 
know  that  his  pupil's  finger  had  ushered  in  the  era  of  modern 
diagnosis. 

Gerhard  Van  Swieten's  successor,  the  unpleasant  Anton 
De  Haen,  left  eighteen  volumes  behind  him  —  including  a 
treatise  in  defense  of  witchcraft.  The  historical  student  who 
digs  among  these  paper  ruins  will  find  the  author  complaining 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  recognize  thoracic  diseases  until 
it  is  too  late  to  help  the  patient.  The  obstinate  man  did  not 
see  that  in  response  to  the  physician's  rapping,  the  door  of 
thoracic  knowledge  opened. 

But  Avenbrugger  had  anticipated  neglect,  and  he  was  too 
well-poised  to  permit  himself  to  be  embittered  or  become  ex- 
asperated. He  devoted  himself  to  practice,  made  money,  went 
to  the  opera  in  winter,  cultivated  a  garden  in  summer,  kissed 
his  wife  every  day,  and  lived  to  celebrate  his  golden  wedding. 

While  Avenbrugger  was  growing  old  in  Vienna,  a  child 
was  growing  up  in  Brittany.  He  was  sickly-born,  the  off- 
spring of  a  tuberculous  mother.  One  day,  when  the  child 
was  six  years  old,  the  neighbors  came  in  and  looked  at  him 
sympathetically,  and  the  woman  patted  him  kindly  on  the 
shoulders,  for  his  mother  was  dead.  His  father  was  a  lawyer, 
but  the  versatile  advocate  wrote  poetry  like  Desforges-Mail- 
lard  and  was  too  busy  in  other  respects  to  be  bothered  by  a 
frail  orphan.  He  brought  the  boy  to  his  grand-uncle,  an 
Abbe  at  Elliant. 

The  uncle  saw  that  the  child  was  obedient,  and  decided  there 
would  be  another  priest  in  the  family.  From  him  Rene  Laen- 
nec  received  considerable  misinformation  which  he  never  for- 


222  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

got.  The  child  was  well-treated,  and  it  seemed  as  if  his 
existence  would  be  eventless  —  he  would  quietly  pass  from  his 
uncle's  district  to  a  parish  of  his  own.  For  what  can  happen 
in  Brittany?  It  is  the  land  of  the  past,  the  province  of  the 
dead.  In  La  Bretagne  only  the  cock  and  the  artist  welcome 
the  rising  sun.  To  study  a  Breton  peasant  is  like  turning 
over  a  well-preserved  half -animated  fossil.  His  skull  is  thick 
enough  to  resist  the  advances  of  French  civilization.  He  will 
not  even  speak  French,  but  still  whines  out  his  barbarous 
patois,  for  he  is  convinced  it  is  the  language  Adam  and  Eve 
spoke  in  paradise. 

The  Breton  folk  are  as  unchangeable  as  the  Druidical  dol- 
mens and  menhirs  which  litter  their  country.  They  are  vic- 
tims of  the  idee  fixe;  in  politics  and  religion  a  new  thought 
will  never  filter  thru  Brittany.  In  a  thousand  years,  or  in 
five  thousand  years,  when  the  present  theology  disappears  with 
its  predecessors,  the  last  Christian  will  be  a  Breton  peasant. 

The  Bretons  have  never  had  any  interest  in  the  rest  of  the 
world,  but  outsiders  have  printed  and  painted  the  name  of 
Brittany  with  praise.  This  is  because  Brittany  is  visited 
chiefly  by  clergymen  who  need  a  rest,  and  by  artists  in  search 
of  color.  The  former  eulogize  Brittany  on  account  of  the 
docility  and  piety  of  the  inhabitants,  and  the  artists  are  en- 
chanted because  the  men  wear  long  hair,  broad-brimmed  hats, 
blue  blouses,  large  belts  and  baggy  breeches  of  sail  cloth,  and 
because  the  women  dress  in  white  caps  with  wide  lappets,  and, 
instead  of  corsets,  are  arrayed  in  pretty  spencers  laced  up  in 
front  of  the  waist  which  open  above  to  allow  for  the  swell 
of  the  bosom.  When  the  Bretons  begin  to  purchase  their 
costume  from  Paris,  we  will  hear  no  more  of  quaint  and  pic- 
turesque Brittany. 

When  Rene  Laennec  was  nine  years  old,  strange  deeds  were 
done:  churchmen,  including  his  uncle,  were  banished.  Ex- 
cited Frenchmen  ran  along  the  roadways,  crying  Liberte, 
Egalite,  Fraternite,  and  pulling  down  the  crucifixes :  they  had 
much  work  to  do,  for  in  Brittany  wherever  two  roads  meet, 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  238 

there  a  crucifix  is  erected.  What  was  happening?  Was  the 
world  coming  to  an  end  ?  Ah,  the  world  was  being  saved.  It 
was  the  great  and  glorious  French  Revolution. 

From  the  Reign  of  Terror  issued  an  ocean  of  blood,  but 
that  scarlet  stream  watered  the  tree  of  liberty;  in  eternal  let- 
ters it  wrote  the  Rights  of  Man ;  it  cast  the  oligarchs  and  the 
theocrats  down;  it  exalted  the  disinherited  of  ages;  it  over- 
threw a  royal  carnival  of  crime  hideous  beyond  belief;  every- 
where it  uttered  the  glad  tidings,  Nous  avons  change  tout  cela. 

As  might  be  expected  the  antiquated  Bretons  fought  on  the 
side  of  the  old  monarchy  against  the  new  republic.  It  did 
not  matter  to  them  that  there  was  a  law  in  France  which  gave 
the  nobles  permission  to  shoot  at  workmen  on  roofs,  merely 
for  the  sport  of  seeing  them  tumble  off.  Probably  the  fact 
that  an  aristocrat  was  not  expected  to  kill  more  than  two 
toilers  during  a  day's  merriment  —  otherwise,  labor  would 
grow  scarce, —  made  the  honest  Breton  heart  pulsate  with 
devotion  towards  his  merciful  superiors.  As  an  experiment 
it  might  be  interesting  to  attempt  to  educate  the  cattle  of  Brit- 
tany—  excluding  the  dullest  beast  of  the  field,  la  vraie  Bre- 
tagne  bretonnante. 

After  the  Abbe's  proscription,  the  boy  was  sent  home  to  his 
father.  '  Mon  Dieu'  exclaimed  that  gentleman,  and  suddenly 
remembered  that  Rene  had  another  uncle,  a  most  honorable 
and  distinguished  man,  Dr  Laennec  of  the  University  of  Nan- 
tes. 

For  ten  years  Rene  remained  under  his  guardianship,  and 
here  it  was  settled  that  he  would  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  his 
medical  relative.  Then  came  the  desire  which  in  every  period 
stirs  all  ambitious  hearts  that  beat  in  provinces:  to  study  in 
the  capital.  In  the  year  1800,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  Laennec 
came  to  Paris. 

Within  the  mesh  of  Parisian  gaiety  many  a  youthful  student 
from  the  provinces  has  been  lost,  but  Rene  Laennec  had  come 
for  the  college  curriculum,  and  the  world  of  merriment  had 
no  meaning  for  him. 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Two  years  after  his  arrival  in  the  French  metropolis,  Laen- 
nec  attracted  attention  by  a  series  of  excellent  articles  which 
he  contributed  to  the  Journal  of  Medicine,  a  periodical  which 
he  eventually  owned,  but  which  at  that  time  was  edited  by 
Corvisart,  Leroux  and  Boyer. 

Laennec  was  a  favorite  pupil  of  Corvisart,  who  had  a 
mighty  name  in  those  days,  for  he  was  physician  to  the  demi- 
god who  emerged  from  the  wreck  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Napoleon  had  a  cold  in  his  chest,  and  was  suspicious  of  the  at- 
tendants who  felt  his  pulse  and  looked  at  his  tongue.  He  was 
told  there  was  a  doctor  who  diagnosed  troubles  in  the  chest  by 
examining  that  part  of  the  body.  '  Send  him  to  me/  said 
Napoleon.  Corvisart  came,  and  tapped  the  imperial  thorax 
with  his  finger-tips.  Thereupon  Napoleon  decided  that  Cor- 
visart should  have  the  honor  of  looking  after  his  majesty's 
health.  They  grew  so  intimate  that  after  the  birth  of  the  King 
of  Rome  Corvisart  was  audacious  enough  to  lecture  the 
world's  chief  phenomenon :  '  Sire,  this  prince  must  crown  all 
your  wishes!  Recall  your  career:  in  less  than  ten  years  a 
simple  officer  of  artillery,  then  captain,  general  of  brigade, 
general-in-chief,  first  consul,  emperor,  spouse  of  an  arch- 
duchess of  Austria,  father  of  a  prince.  Having  reached  so 
dizzy  a  height  of  fortune,  rarely  attained  by  any  mortal,  I 
beg  of  your  majesty  to  stop!  Fortune  may  turn;  you  may 
yet  fall.' 

'  You  speak  like  a  peasant,'  answered  Napoleon. 

But  we  must  not  forget  to  ask :  Where  did  Corvisart  learn 
percussion?  De  Haen's  successor  was  Maxmilian  Stoll,  who 
had  the  misfortune  to  marry  the  meanest  woman  on  earth,  but 
who  was  the  most  enlightened  member  of  the  Old  Vienna 
School.  Stoll  praised  Avenbrugger's  work,  and  a  pupil  of 
Stoll,  named  Eyerel,  wrote  a  treatise  on  percussion  which 
came  to  Corvisart's  notice.  Later  Corvisart  came  across  Av- 
enbrugger's Inventum  Novum,  and  decided  to  translate  it. 
'  I  know  very  well,'  wrote  the  generous  Frenchman,  '  how  lit- 
tle reputation  is  allotted  to  translators  and  commentators,  and 


LA EN NEC 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  225 

I  might  easily  have  elevated  myself  to  the  rank  of  an  author, 
if  I  had  elaborated  anew  the  doctrine  of  Avenbrugger  and 
published  an  independent  work  on  percussion.  In  this  way, 
however,  I  should  have  sacrificed  the  name  of  Avenbrugger 
to  my  own  vanity,  a  thing  which  I  am  unwilling  to  do.  It  is 
he,  and  the  beautiful  invention  which  of  right  belongs  to  him, 
that  I  desire  to  recall  to  life.' 

Before  Corvisart,  percussion  was  the  possession  of  a  hand- 
ful; after  Corvisart,  percussion  became  common  property. 
The  torch  which  Avenbrugger  kindled,  Corvisart  re-lit  for  all 
futurity.  So  we  see  that  tho  the  torch  of  truth  often  flickers 
low,  yet  its  immortal  light  is  never  wholly  quenched.  Floods 
of  misunderstanding  may  roll  over  it,  the  weight  of  authority 
may  threaten  it,  but  thruout  the  long  night  it  glimmers  faith- 
fully, waiting  for  the  truth-seeker  who  will  raise  it  aloft  and 
bring  morning  to  the  intellectual  world. 

Besides  Corvisart,  Laennec's  name  is  associated  with  that  of 
Broussais,  but  in  a  very  different  manner.  With  Corvisart 
he  came  into  loving  contact;  with  Broussais  he  was  in  angry 
conflict.  Laennec  had  no  use  for  Broussais,  and  Broussais 
saw  no  good  in  Laennec.  Broussais  was  a  master  of  sarcasm, 
and  Laennec  was  not  backward  in  bandying  scorn.  No  doubt 
Broussais  was  more  talented  in  this  respect,  but  then  he  had 
numerous  and  various  hatreds,  while  Laennec  could  concen- 
trate. When  he  spoke  of  Broussaisism  his  voice  became  acid, 
and  his  eyes  shot  sparks  of  indignation  thru  his  tortoise- 
rimmed  spectacles.  What  must  have  added  special  piquancy 
to  the  warfare  between  Broussais  and  Laennec  was  the  cir- 
cumstance that  both  were  Bretons,  and  of  all  people  in  the 
world  none  are  so  chauvinistic  as  the  folks  that  hail  from  Brit- 
tany. 

Broussais  was  the  medical  theorist  of  the  hour,  and  elabo- 
rated a  complex  system  of  '  physiological  medicine,'  but  Cor- 
visart and  Laennec  accepted  only  the  Hippocratic  watchword, 
Observation.  Neither  of  the  contestants  was  fair  to  the 
other,  but  it  must  be  said  that  most  of  Broussais's  theories  are 


226  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

now  as  obsolete  as  his  hirudinomania,  which  was  carried  to 
such  an  extent  that  within  a  calendar  year  it  became  necessary 
to  import  forty-two  million  leeches  into  France.  At  one  time 
there  was  hardly  a  French  belly  which  had  not  given  nourish- 
ment to  these  blood-suckers. 

His  theory  of  irritation  as  the  cause  of  disease  had  great 
vogue  in  its  time,  and  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  who  heard 
Broussais  in  his  latter  days,  told  his  Harvard  students,  '  The 
way  in  which  that  knotty-featured,  savage  old  man  would 
bring  out  the  word  irritation  —  with  rattling  and  rolling  re- 
duplication of  the  resonant  letter  r  —  might  have  taught  a 
lesson  in  articulation  to  Salvini.' 

In  1812,  eight  years  after  his  graduation,  Laennec  was  ap- 
pointed physician  to  the  Beaujon  Hospital.  Gifted  and  con- 
scientious, willing  to  work  to  the  point  of  exhaustion,  Laennec 
became  one  of  the  most  renowned  pathologic  anatomists  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  He  was  particularly  interested  in 
the  diseases  of  the  chest,  and  of  course  employed  percussion 
as  he  learnt  it  from  Corvisart,  but  no  one  yet  knew  that  Laen- 
nec was  to  be  Avenbrugger's  spiritual  heir. 

The  malady  which  Laennec  studied  above  all  others  was 
tuberculosis,  the  insidious  foe  which  killed  the  woman  who 
gave  him  life.  Day  and  night  his  thin  hands  grappled  with 
the  ancient  enemy  of  the  human  race.  Immemorial  indeed, 
for  who  shall  say  in  what  distant  epoch  this  subtle  thief  first 
gained  access  to  the  lungs  of  man?  Who  knows  in  what 
dark  and  nebulous  time  a  primeval  mother  first  listened  in  an 
agony  of  helplessness  to  the  hacking  cough  of  her  infant? 
We  are  aghast  at  the  mortality-tables  of  a  sanguinary  war,  but 
on  the  white  bed  of  consumption  fall  more  victims  than  on 
the  red  field  of  battle. 

In  1816  Laennec  was  transferred  to  the  Necker  Hospital. 
During  this  year  a  woman  who  was  suffering  from  heart 
trouble  consulted  him.  Laennec  questioned  her,  but  was 
puzzled  how  to  proceed  with  the  examination.  There  was  no 
use  in  thumping  her  thorax,  for  the  patient  was  too  stout; 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  227 

neither  could  he  put  his  ear  directly  upon  her  breast,  for  she 
was  still  young.  We  may  argue  that  physicians  have  privi- 
leges, but  Laennec  himself  claims  that  immediate  auscultation 
was  inadmissible.  In  his  dilemma  he  happened  to  recollect 
a  fact  in  physics.  Acting  on  the  idea,  he  rolled  a  quire  of 
paper  into  a  kind  of  cylinder  and  applied  one  end  of  it  to  the 
region  of  the  patient's  heart  and  the  other  to  his  own  ear. 
This  was  the  first  stethoscope.  Then  Rene  Laennec  heard  the 
language  of  pathology.  A  diseased  heart  appealed  to  him  for 
aid.  Injuries  that  for  centuries  had  been  inaudible,  now 
found  a  voice.  A  sick  organ  murmured  its  tale  of  woe  into 
the  ear  of  a  great  and  sympathetic  physician.  Ausculta- 
tion, the  crowning  glory  of  physical  diagnosis,  came  into  ex- 
istence. 

In  the  guesses  of  philosophers  like  Democritus,  who  had 
nothing  except  the  deductive  method,  we  find  foreshadowed 
nearly  every  principle  of  modern  science,  but  the  ancients  knew 
practically  nothing  of  auscultation.  Even  Hippocrates  refers 
to  the  subject  but  once,  and  his  observation  is  erroneous.  He 
says  in  De  Morbis,  '  You  shall  know  by  this  that  the  chest 
contains  water  and  not  pus,  if  in  applying  the  ear  during  a 
certain  time  on  the  side,  you  perceive  a  noise  like  that  of  boil- 
ing vinegar.'  Aretseus  too  seems  to  have  known  and  practiced 
a  sort  of  auscultation,  but  otherwise  medical  antiquity  had  no 
ear. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  the  Englishman  Robert  Hooke 
stumbled  upon  the  truth,  but  altho  this  versatile  genius  sowed 
seeds  in  twenty  different  fields,  he  never  remained  to  harvest 
the  crop.  There  is  still  enough  unworked  soil  in  Hooke  to 
support  discoveries  for  the  next  three  centuries.  '  I  have  been 
able,'  wrote  Hooke,  '  to  hear  very  plainly  the  beating  of  a 
man's  heart ;  and  it  is  common  to  hear  the  motion  of  the  wind 
to  and  fro  in  the  guts  and  other  small  vessels;  the  stopping  in 
the  lungs  is  easily  discovered  by  the  wheezing,  the  stopping  of 
the  head  by  the  humming  and  whistling  noises,  the  slipping  to 
and  fro  of  the  joints,  in  many  cases  by  crackling  and  the  like. 


228  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

As  to  the  working  or  motion  of  the  parts  one  amongst  an- 
other, methinks  I  could  receive  encouragement  from  hearing 
the  hissing  noise  made  by  a  corrosive  menstruum  in  its  opera- 
tion, the  noise  of  fire  in  dissolving.' 

After  his  invention  Laennec  toiled  like  a  fanatic.  An  un- 
dersized body  did  the  work  of  twenty  men.  He  improved  his 
stethoscope,  and  with  his  instrument  discovered  many  secrets 
in  the  wondrous  box  that  holds  the  heart  and  lungs.  He  be- 
gan also  to  write  out  his  observations.  As  the  industrious 
days  went  on  there  gathered  on  his  desk  a  pile  of  manuscript 
which  looked  as  if  it  weighed  more  than  the  author.  At  last 
he  was  ready  to  write  the  preface,  which  is  somewhat  reminis- 
cent of  Avenbrugger's  foreword.  '  I  may  say,'  wrote  Laen- 
nec, '  that  no  one  who  has  made  himself  expert  with  this 
method  will  have  occasion  to  say  with  Baglivi,  Oh,  how  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  diagnose  disease  of  the  lungs!  But  our  genera- 
tion is  not  inquisitive  as  to  what  is  being  accomplished  by  its 
sons.  Claims  of  new  discoveries  made  by  contemporaries  are 
likely  for  the  most  part  to  be  met  by  smiles  and  mocking  re- 
marks. It  is  always  easier  to  condemn  than  to  test  by  actual 
experience.  It  suffices  for  me  if  I  can  only  feel  sure  that 
this  method  will  commend  itself  to  a  few  worthy  and  learned 
men  who  will  make  it  of  use  to  many  patients.  I  shall  con- 
sider it  ample,  yea,  more  than  sufficient  reward  for  my  labor, 
if  it  should  prove  the  means  by  which  a  single  human  being  is 
snatched  from  untimely  death.' 

It  was  now  ready  for  type.  The  manuscripts  became  proof- 
sheets,  the  proof-sheets  became  printed  pages,  and  the  printed 
pages  became  a  book.  Laennec' s  Treatise  on  Mediate  Auscul- 
tation and  the  Use  of  the  Stethoscope  is  universally  recog- 
nized as  an  imperishable  medical  classic.  But  the  author  took 
no  joy  in  his  finished  work.  His  life,  his  strength,  his  spirit, 
had  gone  into  the  making  of  his  book.  The  book  was  vital 
with  robust  and  fresh-blown  power;  the  writer  was  weary, 
broken  up  and  undone.  Laennec  lost  interest  in  everything. 
Food  was  set  before  him,  but  he  could  not  eat.  A  bed  was 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  229 

prepared  for  him,  but  he  could  not  sleep.  He  breathed  with 
difficulty,  he  suffered  from  muscular  debility,  the  slightest  exer- 
tion being  followed  by  the  greatest  prostration,  and  often  he 
fainted.  A  deep  melancholy  sat  upon  him:  he  was  a  picture 
of  an  overworked  neurasthenic. 

Laennec  had  just  enough  sanity  in  balance  to  know  that  he 
must  escape  from  Paris  and  return  to  Brittany.  So  he  left 
the  crowded  hospital- wards,  and  after  a  terrible  journey,  stood 
once  more  in  his  native  town  of  Quirnper.  The  sea-breeze 
came  from  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of  Douarnenez,  and  the  hills 
and  the  forests  were  green.  Laennec  smelled  the  air  fragrant 
with  fresh  butter.  He  saw  the  long-haired  peasants  stand 
knee-deep  in  fields  of  buckwheat;  he  heard  the  girls  singing  as 
they  drove  the  cows  home  from  pasture,  and  he  felt  that 
here  he  might  recover.  Nature  was  his  physician,  and  she 
prescribed  him  daily  doses  of  the  earth  and  the  sea  and  the 
sky.  Abstaining  from  mental  effort,  he  spent  his  time  in  the 
open  air,  riding  horseback,  angling  in  the  stream,  hunting  the 
woods  for  foxes  and  partridges.  The  breath  of  a  new  life 
entered  that  wasted  frame;  color  crept  into  those  pallorless 
cheeks.  '  Anne,  cook  this  pair  of  snipes/  he  said,  as  he  put 
down  his  bag  and  rifle,  '  I'm  as  hungry  as  a  bear.'  The  house- 
hold was  in  delight  —  Rene  was  getting  well. 

For  two  years  Laennec  lingered  at  Quimper.  Quimper  is 
the  quintessence  of  Brittany  —  everything  characteristic  of  the 
province  has  retreated  and  crystallized  there.  Quimper  has 
not  wound  her  clock  for  centuries,  and  the  sands  in  her  hour- 
glass do  not  run.  It  is  the  same  time  now  that  it  was  when 
the  Druid  priests  chanted  their  heathen  hymns  under  the  oaks, 
and  if  they  returned  they  would  see  the  monuments  they 
erected  still  standing  —  but  surmounted  by  a  cross.  In 
Quimper,  on  the  cradle  and  the  grave  alike,  falls  the  dust  of 
a  distant  past. 

Laennec  loved  Quimper  —  who  ever  heard  of  a  Breton  that 
did  not  relish  the  very  dung-heaps  of  Brittany?  Breton 
sailors  have  been  known  to  pine  so  passionately  for  their  na- 


230  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

tive  land,  that  they  died  heart-broken  upon  the  voyage.  Laen- 
nec  was  sympathetic  towards  the  peasantry,  and  was  ever 
ready  to  use  his  medical  skill  in  their  behalf  —  and  forget  the 
fee.  As  a  member  of  the  Ultramontane  Church,  Laennec  was 
a  determined  enemy  of  free  institutions,  autocracy  was  his 
ideal,  democracy  was  a  red  spectre  to  him,  but  tho  Laennec 
would  not  trust  the  common  people  to  govern  themselves,  he 
was  fond  of  them,  for  a  man's  theories  do  not  fundamentally 
affect  his  character. 

But  with  the  return  of  health  came  the  conviction  that  a 
physician's  place  is  at  the  clinics  and  not  on  the  mossy  banks 
where  at  twilight  the  poet  reclines.  He  thought  of  the  end- 
less invalids  at  Paris  who  were  victims  of  improper  diagnosis 
— he  should  be  there  with  his  stethoscope.  It  was  time  to 
exchange  the  gossamer  ferns  of  the  fields  for  the  delicate  gauze 
of  the  wards. 

Laennec  was  again  at  Paris.  During  his  absence  his 
pupils  had  carried  on  his  work,  his  book  had  gained  him  a 
reputation,  and  honors  awaited  him.  Not  only  was  he  made 
Professor  of  Medicine  in  the  College  of  France,  not  only  did 
he  receive  the  chair  of  Clinical  Medicine  at  the  Hospital  La 
Charite,  but  he  had  the  felicity  to  be  appointed  physician  to 
the  Duchess  of  Berri.  We  need  not  be  surprised  at  his  grati- 
fication, for  the  royalty-superstition,  barbarous  tho  it  be,  seems 
inbred  in  the  bones  of  man.  Even  so  liberal  a  thinker  as 
Huxley  felt  flattered  when  he  was  granted  an  interview  with 
a  fat  and  commonplace  widow,  who  thru  no  merit  of  her  own 
happened  to  be  a  queen.  Goethe  was  a  life-long  sycophant  at 
the  court  of  Saxe- Weimar,  and  when  the  duke  rode  off  to  join 
the  armies  of  the  Allies  who  endeavored  to  replace  Louis 
XVI  on  his  bloody  throne,  the  author  of  Faust  —  let  the  Muses 
blush  —  followed  the  duke. 

But  Laennec  was  more  interested  in  the  hospital  than  in  the 
noblesse;  essentially  he  was  a  physician,  not  a  courtier. 
Again  he  forgot  the  limitations  of  flesh;  his  earnest  spirit 
would  not  let  him  rest.  Bayle  had  demonstrated  that  when 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  231 

tubercles  are  present  in  the  lungs,  the  patient  has  tuberculosis 
—  but  the  doctor  could  not  recognize  the  condition  until  the 
hectic  fever  set  in  and  the  pus  was  spat  up.  By  auscultation, 
however,  tuberculosis  could  be  diagnosed  in  an  early  stage, 
and  thus  the  labors  of  Laennec  began  to  reduce  the  death-rate 
of  the  most  prevalent  of  diseases.  The  impetus  which  Laen- 
nec gave  to  the  study  of  thoracic  troubles,  was  felt  thruout 
the  medical  world.  In  this  instance  the  triumvirate  of  the 
Irish  School  of  Medicine  especially  distinguished  themselves: 
Graves,  by  his  fresh-air  propaganda  for  tuberculosis;  Stokes, 
by  the  book  on  the  stethoscope  that  he  wrote  in  his  twenty- 
first  year;  and  Corrigan,  by  his  work  on  Permanent  Patency 
of  the  Aortic  Valves.  To  the  Hospital  La  Charite  came  stu- 
dents from  all  nations  to  hear  the  lectures  of  the  diminutive, 
narrow-chested  man,  who  first  raised  a  hopeful  voice  against 
the  Great  White  Plague. 

After  the  elapse  of  a  few  years  it  was  necessary  to  pre- 
pare a  second  edition  of  his  Treatise.  '  Second  edition '  to 
the  majority  of  authors  means  the  correction  of  a  few  errors, 
the  addition  of  a  few  notes,  the  insertion  of  the  legend  on  the 
title-page,  Revised  and  Greatly  Enlarged,  and  an  expression 
of  gratitude  in  the  preface  that  the  second  edition  was  needed. 
But  to  so  conscientious  an  individual  as  Laennec,  a  second  edi- 
tion meant  the  re-writing  of  the  entire  book.  To  write  a  book 
with  the  sweat  of  your  brain  and  your  heart's  blood  is  a 
serious  thing;  nature  usually  throws  nervous  prostration  into 
the  bargain.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  Lagrange  worked 
on  his  Mecanique  Analytique,  but  when  the  volume  was  finally 
printed,  the  author  let  it  lay  for  over  two  years  on  his  desk 
unopened.  He  was  too  tired.  The  efforts  that  Laennec  ex- 
pended upon  the  second  issue  of  his  magnum  opus,  together 
with  the  Herculean  labors  which  this  pigmy  performed  in 
the  clinics,  again  wrecked  his  health  on  the  altar  of  overwork. 
In  this  state  his  only  remedy  was  Quimper.  Once  more  he 
returned  to  his  native  town,  and  life  and  death  struggled  in 
his  sunken  chest. 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

A  party  of  travelers  presented  themselves  at  a  house  in 
Quimper,  and  knocked  for  admission. 

'  What  do  you  want  ?  '  asked  the  man  who  came  to  the  door. 

'  We  are  weary  of  wandering;  let  us  rest  at  your  hearth.' 

'  Pass  on;  the  roads  are  full  of  vagabonds;  who  knows  who 
you  may  be?  ' 

'  Be  hospitable,  brother ;  the  sky  threatens ;  a  storm  is  com- 
ing.' 

'  If  you  hasten  you  will  reach  the  next  inn  before  the  clouds 
burst.' 

'  Listen,'  says  the  spokesman  of  the  pretended  travelers,  '  I 
deceived  you  when  I  asked  for  shelter.  I  come  for  another 
purpose.  My  young  master  desires  the  girl  of  this  house. 
There  was  never  a  youth  like  him.  He  can  plow  as  much 
in  one  day  as  three  hired  laborers;  alone  he  can  replace  an 
overturned  cart ;  he  has  wrestled  with  all  the  able-bodied  men 
of  the  village,  and  has  laid  many  champions  on  their  backs;  in 
his  hand  a  stick  is  more  powerful  than  a  sword  in  the  hand  of 
a  soldier.' 

'  And  this  maiden,'  replies  the  other,  '  think  you  there  are 
many  as  good  as  she?  She  is  light  and  supple  as  the  blossom- 
covered  branches  of  the  broom.  She  is  a  timid  virgin,  and 
when  the  dance  begins,  she  holds  in  one  hand  the  hand  of  her 
mother,  and  in  the  other  that  of  a  female  friend.  But  she  is 
not  here ;  she  has  long  left  her  father's  house.' 

'  You  deceive  me ;  the  yew-tree  is  made  for  the  church-yard, 
the  rose  for  the  garden,  and  young  girls  to  grace  the  home  of 
a  husband.  Do  not  throw  us  into  despair!  Lead  hither  by 
the  hand  her  whom  we  desire,  and  we  will  place  her  at  the 
wedding-feast  near  her  bridegroom.' 

'  It  seems  we  must  yield  to  you,  friend.  I  will  fetch  her,' 
and  going  into  the  room  he  comes  back  with  an  old  woman, 
and  asks,  '  Is  this  then  the  rose  you  are  seeking?  ' 

'  From  the  venerable  appearance  of  this  woman,'  replies 
the  other,  '  I  judge  that  she  has  well- fulfilled  her  task  in  this 
world,  and  that  she  has  conferred  happiness  on  him  who  has 


LAENNEC  AND  AUSCULTATION  233 

loved  her.  But  she  has  ended  that  which  the  other  must  now 
begin.  She  is  not  the  woman  I  seek.' 

The  host  returns  again  to  the  house,  and  leads  forth  a 
young  married  woman.  '  Here,'  he  says,  '  is  a  young  girl, 
beautiful  as  a  star.  Her  cheeks  are  like  roses;  and  her  eyes 
are  of  crystal.  One  glance  from  them  can  render  a  heart 
sick  for  ever!  This  must  be  the  fair  one  whom  you  want.' 

'  Certainly  this  soft  cheek  and  youthful  freshness  look  like 
those  of  a  maiden.  But  that  finger,  bearing  the  marks  of  rub- 
bing —  has  it  not  often  been  rubbed  with  pap  for  an  infant 
to  suck  ? ' 

'  Nothing  escapes  your  notice !  Tell  me,  is  this  she  whom 
you  want  ?  '  and  he  brings  out  a  child. 

'  That  is  exactly  what  she,  whom  I  seek,  was  some  years 
ago.  Some  day  this  pretty  child  will  make  a  husband  happy. 
But  she  must  remain  yet  a  long  while  on  the  espalier.  The 
one  whom  I  want  waits  for  the  gardener's  basket  to  carry  her 
to  the  table  of  the  nuptial  feast.' 

'  Friend,  it  is  enough/  says  the  bride's  spokesman,  '  You 
deserve  her  whom  you  seek.' 

Together  the  two  families  enter  the  house.  The  bride  and 
bridegroom  clasp  hands,  all  kneel  in  prayer,  then  repair  to 
church,  and  return  for  the  feast.  At  the  head  of  the  principal 
table,  opposite  each  other,  sit  the  happy  couple,  and  between 
them  is  placed  a  gigantic  dish  of  butter.  Hundreds  of  peas- 
ants are  present;  they  eat  and  drink  and  dance;  they  swallow 
a  flock  of  ducks  and  chew  a  herd  of  cows  —  they  eat  and 
drink  and  puke.  They  gulp  down  barrels  of  liquor  till  we 
marvel  at  the  capacity  of  the  human  alimentary  canal.  They 
eat  and  drink  and  roll  under  the  tables,  every  atom  drunk. 

At  midnight,  in  the  presence  of  the  company,  the  bride  is 
undressed  and  put  into  the  oaken  bed;  the  bridegroom  jumps 
in  beside  her,  walnuts  and  wine  are  passed  to  them,  and  the 
celebration  continues.  Gradually  those  guests  who  are  not 
asleep  begin  to  take  their  departure,  and  Quimper  grows  as 
quiet  as  usual  —  so  quiet  that  in  the  silent  night  we  can  hear 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

a  hacking  cough.  Laennec  is  perishing  of  tuberculosis.  He 
passes  away  holding  in  his  hand  a  cross.  He  dies  modestly, 
forgetting  that  the  stethoscope  has  done  more  for  mankind 
than  the  crucifix. 

Laennec's  name  remained  the  greatest  in  the  history  of  tu- 
berculosis until  the  epochal  evening,  two  generations  later, 
when  Robert  Koch  read  his  paper,  The  Etiology  of  Tuber- 
culosis, announcing  that  a  short  rod-shaped  bacterium  was  the 
sole  and  only  causative  agent  of  the  universal  scourge.  Suf- 
fering mankind  now  awaits  him  who  will  discover  a  remedy 
to  destroy  Dr  Koch's  bacillus.  In  high  expectation  Koch  him- 
self proclaimed  that  he  had  found  a  specific;  but  tuberculin  is 
a  stain  —  the  only  one  —  on  the  Hanoverian's  bright  es- 
cutcheon. The  Jenner  of  tuberculosis  has  not  yet  arisen; 
when  he  comes,  when  he  brings  to  the  medical  market  the 
blessed  drug  that  will  materially  help  to  transform  con- 
sumptives into  normal  human  beings,  the  historical  student 
will  join  in  the  general  rejoicing,  but  he  will  not  forget  how 
much  the  world  owes  to  the  previous  labors  of  Rene  Laennec. 


(1811-1870) 
SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM 


SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM 

I  also  attended  on  two  occasions  the  operating  theater  in  the  hospital 
at  Edinburgh,  and  saw  two  very  bad  operations,  one  on  a  child,  but  I 
rushed  away  before  they  were  completed.  Nor  did  I  ever  attend  again, 
for  hardly  any  inducement  would  have  been  strong  enough  to  make  me 
do  so;  this  being  long  before  the  blessed  days  of  chloroform.  The  two 
cases  fairly  haunted  me  for  many  a  long  year. 

—  CHARLES  DARWIN. 

Behold  me  waiting — waiting  for  the  knife; 
A  little  while,  and  at  a  leap  I  storm 
The  thick,  sweet  mystery  of  chloroform, 
The  drunken  dark,  the  little  death-in-life. 

—  WILLIAM  ERNEST  HENLEY. 

A  GOSSAMER  mist  glided  out  of  cloudland,  floating  quietly 
and  falling  gently  on  the  crags  of  the  shore.  The  delicate 
water-dust  struck  the  points,  settled  on  the  peaks,  and  broke 
into  a  vaporous  fog.  The  opaque  haze  bedimmed  the  air,  but 
the  careful  pilot  in  the  sea  below  steered  his  passengers  along 
the  southern  coast  of  the  Firth  of  Forth.  To  the  castled 
county  of  hilly  Linlithgow  were  the  tourists  bound.  Toward 
the  green  knolls  that  divide  the  lake  in  twain  were  they  travel- 
ing. They  were  on  their  way  to  the  remains  of  the  finest 
ruin  in  Scotland  — the  Linlithgow  Palace. 

They  walked  around  the  fountain  whose  waters  had  once 
bubbled  for  the  delight  of  royalty  —  now  as  dry  as  a  rill  that 
has  ceased  to  be  fed  by  rain.  They  looked  at  the  chambers 
in  which  were  born  James  II,  James  V,  and  Mary  Stuart. 
They  stood  on  the  very  spot  where  King  Fieryface,  from  the 
window  above,  had  hurled  the  lifeless  body  of  the  Earl  of 
Douglas.  They  climbed  the  spiral  staircase  till  they  came 
to  the  bower  where  Queen  Margaret  used  to  wait  for  James 
IV, —  who  never  returned  from  Flodden  Field. 

They  lifted  their  eyes  and  saw  the  famous  battlefield  of 

237 


238  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Bannockburn.  Here  Robert  Bruce  defeated  the  English 
army,  restored  Scottish  independence,  and  gave  Robert  Burns 
a  chance  to  write  what  Carlyle  called  the  mightiest  war-ode  in 
the  world  —  Scots  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled. 

Surely  the  scene  is  romantic  enough,  and  many  would  fain 
dwell  longer  in  the  enchanted  vicinity  and  imagine  a  chieftain 
fighting  in  every  cave  and  cliff,  while  the  minstrels  chanted 
ballads  o'  the  border.  Some  would  sentimentalize  on  the  kings 
and  queens  whose  blue-blooded  bones  are  moldering  like  the 
walls  of  their  favorite  castle. 

But  no  pen  of  ours  can  scratch  a  line  of  praise  for  mon- 
arch or  warrior.  Besides,  lest  it  be  imagined  that  every 
goose  in  Linlithgow  is  a  swan,  and  all  the  lads  and  lassies  be 
of  blood-royal,  we  hasten  to  add  that  here  lived,  with  his  wife 
and  family,  a  simple  baker  named  Simpson. 

Seven  children  tarried  in  the  old  home-nest,  and  grew  lusty 
on  their  father's  bread.  They  loved  each  other  heartily,  and 
made  merry  under  the  paternal  roof.  Yet  one  day  they  were 
warned  to  be  very  quiet.  The  baker  himself  walked  on  tip- 
toe, and  spoke  in  whispers.  A  nurse  moved  noiselessly  thru 
the  rooms. 

Plaintive  moans  were  heard.  Such  sounds  were  not 
strange  to  Simpson,  and  still  they  frightened  him.  He  knew 
the  woman  he  loved  was  fighting  the  brave  battle  and  facing 
the  great  mystery.  The  cries  increased  —  the  pangs  of  child- 
birth are  severe.  Scream  followed  scream  —  the  mother  la- 
bored in  the  agony  of  agonies.  A  heartbreaking  wail  which 
the  closed  door  could  illy  bar  pierced  every  corner  of  the  house 
and  pierced  likewise  the  soul  of  the  father.  Again  that  shriek 
escaped  her,  and  the  middle  of  the  marrow  of  his  bones  seemed 
to  shake.  He  rose  in  his  nervousness,  and  shuddered  with  an 
uncommon  fear. 

He  heard  gasps.  Was  she  struggling?  Was  she  trying  to 
breathe?  Was  she  dying?  Ah,  what  a  shrill,  keen  outcry \ 
How  long  must  it  last  ?  Will  it  never  end  ?  Is  there  nothing 
to  stop  such  suffering?  Can  the  physician  offer  no  remedy  to 


SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM  289 

assuage  such  violent  anguish?  No,  Simpson,  no.  The  doc- 
tor who  now  stands  in  your  rooms  is  empty-handed,  but  listen 
—  the  times  may  change. 

Open  the  door  and  peep  in  the  chamber.  On  the  bed  lies 
your  exhausted  wife.  The  tears  are  in  her  eyes,  and  her  face 
is  pale  with  pain.  But  see  what  she  holds  in  the  crook  of  her 
elbow  —  a  babe. 

Father,  you  should  tell  the  highlanders  to  play  a  gladder 
pibroch  than  their  bagpipes  yet  have  known;  the  times  will 
change,  the  times  will  change.  Tell  them  to  pipe  it  over  the 
tallest  hills  and  across  the  faraway  seas ;  the  times  will  change, 
the  times  will  change.  Shout  to  them  to  blow  stoutly  on  their 
sturdy  reeds  until  the  new  tune  brings  a  new  joy  upon  the 
earth;  the  times  will  change,  the  times  will  change.  A  babe 
who  is  born  of  woman  will  bring  unto  woman  a  boon ! 

It  is  we  who  can  say  these  things  as  we  look  back  in  per- 
spective ;  Simpson's  thoughts  were  more  commonplace. 

The  Simpson  family  held  a  serious  consultation  —  what 
was  to  be  done  with  their  youngest  boy?  It  would  be  fine 
to  send  him  to  the  University,  but  this  required  more  bank- 
notes than  Simpson  received  for  his  oaten  cakes  and  barley 
bannocks.  The  sacks  of  flour  were  ready,  the  stone  ovens 
were  heated  hot,  and  the  yeast  was  added  to  the  dough  till 
the  mixture  rose  like  a  living  thing  —  but  the  cold  money  did 
not  rise. 

They  discussed  the  matter  again,  and  at  night  the  father 
and  mother  whispered  low  and  lovingly  —  so  the  children 
could  not  hear.  The  University  idea  became  the  dream  and 
desire  of  their  hearts  —  James  must  go. 

Even  if  poor,  there  is  little  a  united  family  cannot  do. 
In  union  there  is  a  strength  that  conquers  adversity  and  puts 
a  quietus  on  poverty.  You  cannot  break  the  bundle  of  sticks 
when  they  are  tied  together.  When  little  Jamie,  '  the  rosy 
bairn  wi'  laughin'  mou'  and  dimpled  cheeks,'  was  only  nine 
years,  his  mother  died  —  but  the  idea  remained.  All  the 
Simpsons  agreed  to  save  and  struggle  and  sacrifice  for  the  sake 


240  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

of  the  little  brother,  and  thus  it  was  that  at  the  age  of  four- 
teen James  Young  Simpson  became  a  student  in  the  University 
of  Edinburgh. 

For  the  first  two  years  he  attended  the  arts  classes,  and 
then  began  his  medical  studies.  The  boyhood  history  of 
many  men  of  eminence  reveals  the  fact  that  they  flunked  in 
their  quizzes  at  school,  and  received  degrees  only  from  the 
University  of  Life.  But  Simpson,  being  the  son  of  poor  par- 
ents, could  not  afford  to  indulge  in  this  luxury.  He  seized 
the  college  curricula  with  both  hands,  and  held  on.  He 
studied  diligently,  passed  the  required  examinations,  became 
a  Doctor  of  Medicine  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  and  presented 
a  thesis,  On  Death  from  Inflammation,  which  so  impressed  the 
Professor  of  Pathology  that  the  recent  graduate  was  offered 
and  accepted  an  assistantship. 

In  this  respect  Simpson  differed  materially  from  a  tall 
young  fellow  who  entered  the  Edinburgh  University  the 
same  year  that  he  did.  The  aforesaid  tall  young  fellow  was 
the  son  and  grandson  of  a  physician,  and  he  likewise  com- 
menced the  pursuit  of  medicine.  But  he  found  the  lectures  so 
intolerably  dull  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  prepare  his 
lessons.  Perhaps  the  cheerful  fact  that  his  father  was  well- 
to-do  acted  as  an  additional  stimulant  to  his  idleness.  He 
soon  deserted  medicine  in  disgust,  and  solemnly  vowed  never 
to  look  within  the  covers  of  a  scientific  book.  Yet  the  day 
came  when  the  Royal  Medical  Society  of  Edinburgh  made 
him  an  honorary  member,  and  the  strict  Universities  of 
Breslau,  Bonn  and  Leyden  honored  themselves  by  giving  him 
an  honorary  M.D.  This  drone  did  not  eat  in  the  hive  of 
inactivity  till  he  was  stung  to  death  by  the  workers.  The 
time  came  when  he  gathered  more  honey  than  all  the  others. 
He  was  Charles  Darwin. 

Who  invented  the  telegraph?  Morse,  you  say,  but  Morse 
built  on  Henry,  who  built  on  Steinheil,  who  built  on  Weber 
and  Gaus,  who  built  on  Faraday,  who  built  on  Davy,  who 
built  on  Nicholson  and  Carlisle,  who  built  on  Galvani  and 


SIMPSON 


SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM 

Volta,  who  built  on  Don  Silva  and  Cavallo,  who  built  on 
Lomond,  who  built  on  Lesage,  who  built  on  Stephen  Gray, 
who  built  on  others,  back  and  still  further  back. 

Who  first  scanned  the  heavens  with  a  telescope?  Galileo, 
you  cry,  but  before  the  great  Italian  fitted  a  convex  lens  at 
one  end  of  a  leaden  tube  and  a  concave  at  the  other,  he  had 
heard  of  an  instrument  which  annihilates  distance  and  magni- 
fies objects  in  a  wondrous  way.  Some  say  —  and  with  good 
reason  —  that  the  telescope  was  invented  by  three  clever 
Dutchmen,  Jansen,  Metius  and  Lippershey;  others  claim  that 
long  before  these  Dutchmen  saw  the  light,  Roger  Bacon  knew 
all  about  optic  glasses  and  could  combine  them  to  form  a  tele- 
scope. And,  reader,  haven't  you  read  that  five  centuries  B.  C. 
the  Laughing  Philosopher  declared  the  Milky  Way  to  be  com- 
posed of  vast  multitudes  of  stars?  Could  he  have  seen  this 
without  some  sort  of  a  telescope?  If  so,  then  the  eye  of 
Democritus  was  as  unusual  as  his  brain. 

Whom  shall  we  call  the  Father  of  Anesthetics?  Here  we 
must  pause,  for  ever  since  mortal  felt  a  twitch  of  physical  pain, 
he  wished  to  drink  of  Lethe.  Indian  hemp  or  hasheesh  seems 
to  have  been  the  first  anesthetic,  for  it  is  believed  that  this  was 
the  plant  with  which  the  Egyptians  numbed  their  patients  be- 
fore surgical  operations;  it  is  further  believed  that  this  was 
the  sorrow-easing  drug  which  Helen  gave  to  Ulysses  in  the 
Odyssey.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  in  both  of  these  cases 
opium  was  the  medium,  or  perhaps  a  mixture  of  the  hemp  and 
the  juice  of  the  poppy. 

More  than  six  thousand  years  ago  the  Babylonians  used 
mandragora,  and  there  are  Biblical  and  Talmudic  references 
to  soporifics. 

Of  course  the  keen  Greeks  and  Romans  knew  several  reme- 
dies to  assuage  pain  and  paralyze  sensation.  Allusions  to 
them  are  found  scattered  thru  the  works  of  Dioscorides,  Pliny, 
Celsus,  Galen,  Paulus  ^gineta  and  others.  '  If  anyone,' 
wrote  Apelius,  '  is  to  have  a  limb  mutilated,  burnt,  or  sawn, 
he  may  drink  half  an  ounce  of  mandragora  with  wine;  and 


while  he  sleeps  the  member  may  be  cut  off  without  any  pain 
or  sense.' 

In  the  third  century  the  Chinese  doctor  Hao-Tho  anes- 
thetized his  patients  with  ma-yo,  which  was  probably  the  hemp 
plant. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  the  leading  apostles  of  anesthesia 
seem  to  have  been  Hugh  of  Lucca,  the  inventor  of  the  Sleeping 
Sponge,  and  Guy  de  Chauliac,  one  of  the  chief  figures  in  the 
history  of  medieval  medicine.  In  his  Chirurgia  Magna  is 
this  passage :  '  Some  prescribe  medicaments  which  send  the 
patient  to  sleep,  so  that  the  incision  may  not  be  felt,  such  as 
opium,  the  juice  of  the  morel,  hyoscyamus,  mandrake,  ivy, 
hemlock,  lettuce.  A  new  sponge  is  soaked  by  them  in  these 
juices  and  left  to  dry  in  the  sun;  and  when  they  have  need  of 
it  they  put  this  sponge  into  warm  water  and  then  hold  it  under 
the  nostrils  of  the  patient  until  he  goes  to  sleep.  Then  they 
perform  the  operation.' 

References  to  anesthesia  are  not  infrequent  in  the  literature 
of  the  times.  In  Boccaccio's  Decameron  a  surgeon  of  Sal- 
erno discourses  of  his  soporific.  The  Shakespearean  student 
will  recall  the  master's  mention  of  mandrake :  lago  tells  Othello 
of  it,  and  Cleopatra  calls  for  mandragora  when  Anthony  is 
away,  to  sleep  out  the  great  gap  of  time.  Another  dramatist 
of  this  period,  Thomas  Middleton,  in  his  Women  Beware 
Women,  wrote: 

I'll  imitate  the  pities  of  old  surgeons 

To  this  lost  limb,  who,  ere  they  show  their  art, 

Cast  one  asleep,  then  cut  the  diseased  part. 

Still  another  Elizabethan  poet  —  the  youth  who  flung  away 
his  genius  in  a  brothel  as  carelessly  as  a  fisherboy  casts  a  pebble 
in  the  sea  —  makes  Barabas  in  the  Jew  of  Malta  say : 

I  drank  of  poppy  and  cold  mandrake  juice, 
And  being  asleep,  belike  they  thought  nte  dead, 
And  threw  me  o'er  the  walls. 


SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM  £48 

In  truth  at  this  period  anesthetics  appeared  to  more  ad- 
vantage in  poetry  than  in  practice.  The  outcome  was  always 
uncertain,  and  in  the  seventeenth  century  anesthesia  was  al- 
most wholly  forgotten  or  abandoned. 

But  then  followed  the  Chemical  Century,  when  numerous 
gases  were  discovered,  and  experimenters  began  to  inhale  all 
sorts  of  vapors,  and  Humphry  Davy  learnt  the  anesthetic  vir- 
tues of  nitrous  oxide  which  had  recently  been  discovered  by 
Priestley,  and  Michael  Faraday  found  sulphuric  ether  to  be 
possessed  of  similar  properties.  In  his  Researches  Chemical 
and  Philosophical,  published  in  1800,  Davy  wrote:  '  As  nitrous 
oxide  in  its  extensive  operation  seems  capable  of  destroying 
physical  pain,  it  may  probably  be  used  with  advantage  during 
surgical  operations  in  which  no  great  effusion  of  blood  takes 
place.' 

It  is  strange  that  a  statement  so  richly  suggestive  should 
have  been  barren  of  results,  But  more  than  another  genera- 
tion had  to  pass  before  the  subject  was  further  investigated, 
and  it  was  in  another  country  that  anesthesia  first  became  an 
effective  blessing.  Practically  speaking,  anesthesia  is  an 
American  discovery.  In  the  fourth  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  teeth  were  painlessly  extracted  and  amputations  per- 
formed under  the  influence  of  nitrous  oxide  and  ether.  It 
is  an  epoch  of  glory  and  shame,  for  on  the  trail  of  this  revela- 
tion —  unquestionably  one  of  the  grandest  in  all  medical  his- 
tory —  strode  tragedy,  suicide,  scandal,  greed  and  law-suits. 
The  discovery  was  made  for  the  benefit  of  humanity,  but  hu- 
man selfishness  is  written  large  all  over  it.  Priority  and  pat- 
ent-rights —  these  were  the  questions  that  were  angrily  argued 
between  the  suspicious  disputants.  Even  yet  the  dust  of 
hatred  has  not  settled,  and  looking  thru  the  haze  of  misunder- 
standing it  is  still  impossible  to  sum  up  the  merits  of  the  case; 
tho  we  know  alas!  that  out  of  the  four  principal  claimants, 
one  died  in  obscurity,  the  second  died  broken-hearted,  the 
third  died  in  a  lunatic-asylum,  and  the  fourth  died  by  his  own 
hand  in  jail. 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

But  besides  Long,  Morton,  Jackson,  and  Wells,  at  least  a 
dozen  other  Americans  were  among  the  pioneers  of  anesthesia : 
Colton,  Riggs,  Clarke,  Marcy,  Warren,  Hayward,  Pope, 
Bigelow,  Holmes,  Godman,  Wood  and  Bache. 

Yet  tho  we  cannot  decide  upon  whom  to  place  the  badge  of 
Founder  of  Modern  Anesthesia,  one  event  in  the  history  of 
relieving  pain  is  certain:  the  first  physician  to  openly  use  an 
anesthetic  in  a  case  of  childbirth  was  James  Young  Simpson. 
In  this  he  had  no  precedent:  he  was  inspired  by  the  example 
of  no  one,  unless  perchance  it  were  the  murdered  spirit  of  the 
Lady  Eufame  Macalyene,  who  in  this  very  city  of  Edinburgh 
was  burnt  at  the  stake  by  the  ecclesiastics  for  attempting  to 
deaden  the  pangs  of  labor  by  artificial  means. 

The  first  drug  which  Simpson  used  in  his  obstetric  case  — 
January  19,  1847,  a  date  worth  remembering  —  was  ether. 
Not  being  quite  satisfied  with  its  efficiency,  he  searched  for  an 
anesthetic  of  more  energetic  action.  With  his  talented  assist- 
ants, Drs  Keith  and  Matthews  Duncan,  he  tested  the  proper- 
ties of  the  vapor  of  iodoform,  acetone,  benzine,  chloride  of 
hydrocarbon,  nitrate  of  oxide  of  ethyl,  and  various  oils  and 
gases.  None  of  these  caused  him  to  cry,  '  Eureka! ' 

On  the  evening  of  November  4,  1847,  tne  experimenters 
inhaled  several  substances  without  any  marked  effect.  Ether 
still  remained  the  unrivalled  anesthetic.  At  this  moment 
Simpson  happened  to  remember  that  a  Liverpool  chemist 
named  Waldie  had  spoken  to  him  about  a  certain  heavy  color- 
less liquid.  Simpson  looked  for  the  bottle,  but  could  not  find 
it.  Probably  when  he  was  on  the  point  of  remarking  that  it 
wasn't  of  much  importance  anyhow,  the  amber-colored  bottle 
was  pulled  out  from  the  bottom  of  a  heap  of  waste  paper. 
Simpson  scrutinized  it  again,  and  shook  his  head  dubiously. 
It  seemed  to  him  too  ponderous  to  be  of  much  value. 

But  he  took  out  the  stopper,  poured  the  contents  in  the 
tumblers,  and  the  three  inhalers  eagerly  shoved  their  noses  to 
the  brim.  In  a  moment  they  rose  —  happier  than  when  they 
had  sat  down.  Dr  Keith's  eyes  grew  bright  and  he  laughed 


SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM  245 

heartily.  Dr  Duncan  waltzed  around  the  room,  and  Dr  Simp- 
son, altho  he  was  usually  the  dignified  Professor  of  Medi- 
cine and  Midwifery  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  now 
wiggled  his  toes  and  would  have  stood  on  his  learned  head  for 
a  doughnut.  Some  ladies  came  into  the  room,  and  the  gentle- 
men were  remarkably  amiable.  They  were  more  polite  than 
Chesterfield,  and  the  silvery  stream  of  continual  conversation 
which  unceasingly  flowed  from  their  gifted  tongues  would 
have  worried  the  mouth  of  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan.  The 
delighted  ladies  had  never  before  met  such  pleasant  com- 
panions. They  did  not  know  that  these  gay  Lotharios  were 
drunk  —  on  chloroform !  General  Wolfe  was  killed  at  the 
moment  of  victory,  and,  unfortunately,  in  the  midst  of  their 
newly-acquired  popularity  with  admiring  femininity,  the  sec- 
ondary effects  of  the  chloroform  vapors  became  evident.  The 
charming  doctors  became  confused,  and  then  like  the  crew  in 
Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner  —  a  heavy  thump,  a  lifeless 
lump,  they  dropped  down  one  by  one. 

When  Professor  Simpson  awoke,  he  found  himself  pros- 
trate on  the  floor.  His  thought  was  as  follows :  '  This  is 
better  than  ether.' 

One  of  the  young  ladies,  Miss  Petrie,  wishing  to  prove 
that  she  was  as  brave  as  a  man,  inhaled  the  chloroform,  folded 
her  arms  across  her  breast,  and  fell  asleep  chirping,  '  I'm  an 
angel !  Oh,  I'm  an  angel ! ' —  but  Simpson  searched  in  vain 
for  the  wings. 

He  soon  prepared  a  paper  on  Anesthetics  which  he  read 
before  the  Medico-Chirurgical  Society  of  Edinburgh,  and 
dwelt  especially  on  the  superiority  of  chloroform  over  ether. 
He  began  at  once  to  use  it  in  his  obstetrical  practice.  One 
would  naturally  suppose  that  the  whole  world  rose  as  one 
person  and  hailed  Simpson  as  blessed,  and  that  women  es- 
pecially felt  like  traveling  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  cast 
flowers  in  his  path.  Instead  of  this  adulation,  however,  he 
was  attacked  on  so  many  sides  that  like  the  lofty  Milton  he 
might  have  said : 


246  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

....    a  barbarous  noise  environs  me, 
Of  owls  and  cuckoos,  asses,  apes  and  dogs. 

The  controversy  grew  so  bitter  that  had  Simpson  been  a 
Semmelweis  he  might  have  become  insane,  and  had  he  been 
a  Horace  Wells  he  would  have  killed  himself.  But  Simpson 
was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place ;  he  had  the  courage  which 
defends  and  the  courage  which  attacks.  His  was  a  warm 
and  tender  heart,  but  these  desirable  qualities  did  not  prevent 
him  from  showing  proper  temper  at  unwarranted  conserva- 
tism and  unnecessary  stupidity.  He  was  no  meek-cheeked 
weakling,  and  his  hand  was  not  lily-fingered.  He  was  the 
leader  of  a  great  battle  and  he  fought  with  a  clenched  fist,  for 
the  man  behind  the  truth  has  little  time  to  waste  in  mewing  to 
the  macrobiotic  mush  of  the  multitude. 

Unfortunately,  it  was  not  only  the  unscientific  rabble  which 
shouted  at  Simpson.  Meigs  of  Philadelphia,  Ramsbotham  of 
Great  Britain,  Scanzoni  of  Germany  —  men  of  brains  and  skill 
—  opposed  the  innovation.  It  seems  that  whenever  a  great 
radical  steers  his  progressive  ship  over  the  waves  of  improve- 
ment, there  is  pitted  against  him  a  great  reactionist,  who  by 
the  weight  of  his  authority  beats  back  the  advancing  craft, 
and  causes  it  to  tremble  and  flounder  among  the  sands  and 
shoals  of  established  usage. 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  the  arguments  which  were  urged 
against  Simpson's  introduction  of  anesthetics  into  obstetrics. 
Objections  were  seldom  raised  on  the  ground  that  the  admin- 
istration of  chloroform  would  prove  injurious  to  either  mother 
or  child.  The  disputants  did  not  claim  that  the  anesthetic 
would  interfere  with  the  natural  progress  of  labor,  or  impede 
the  uterine  contractions,  or  that  there  would  be  an  increased 
elimination  of  nitrogen  in  the  new-born  babe.  Such  state- 
ments —  tho  incorrect  —  would  at  least  be  entitled  to  the 
gravest  and  most  careful  consideration.  But  such  arguments 
were  not  advanced.  Instead,  much  stress  was  laid  on  the 
fact  that  an  anesthetic  sometimes  arouses  the  amorous  feel- 
ings, and  that  some  women  who  have  been  under  the  influ- 


SIMPSON  AND  CHLOROFORM 

ence  of  ether  or  chloroform  have  confessed  that  while  anes- 
thetized they  believed  they  were  engaged  in  the  act  of  coition. 
That  such  occurrences  were  exceptional  and  unusual,  while 
labor-pains  were  otherwise,  was  not  taken  into  account,  and 
it  was  both  seriously  asserted  and  solemnly  maintained  that  if 
anesthetics  were  used  in  obstetrics  the  holy  pangs  of  labor 
would  be  metamorphosed  into  exhibitions  of  sexual  passion. 

It  was  further  argued  that  the  maternal  instinct  was  in  dan- 
ger of  being  abolished,  as  a  mother  could  not  love  children 
whom  she  had  brought  into  the  world  without  suffering. 

But  even  these  were  not  the  main  contentions.  Indeed, 
they  were  only  breezes  in  relation  to  the  whirlwind  which  was 
to  overwhelm  him;  they  were  only  the  lapping  of  the  waves 
in  comparison  with  the  howling  storm  which  was  to  seethe 
about  him.  For,  in  endeavoring  to  assuage  the  pangs  of  child- 
birth, Simpson,  tho  orthodox,  had  forgotten  to  reckon  with 
Genesis  iii,  16  —  the  passage  which  contains  God's  male- 
diction to  mothers : '  I  will  greatly  multiply  thy  sorrow  and  thy 
conception;  in  sorrow  thou  shalt  bring  forth  children.' 

The  parsons  got  busy.  Simpson  was  denounced  as  an  im- 
pious meddler  who  sought  to  overthrow  the  divine  decree  of 
Providence.  Of  course,  they  called  him  an  atheist,  and  his 
followers  were  considered  imps  of  Beelzebub.  Someone 
quoted  Dr  Osborn's  essay  in  which  the  author  claims  that 
God's  curse  as  to  painful  parturition  was  intended  to  be  con- 
tinued as  long  as  the  world  endures,  which  could  be  seen  by 
the  fact  that  the  erect  position  of  woman's  body  makes  labor 
more  tedious  and  difficult  in  her  case  than  in  the  case  of  cows, 
sows  and  other  quadrupeds  which  have  the  horizontal  form. 

But  Scripture  can  be  answered  by  Scripture,  and  Simpson 
on  his  part  quoted  Genesis  ii,  21,  in  which  it  is  related  that 
when  the  Lord  wished  to  take  a  rib  from  Adajn  in  order  to 
make  Eve,  he  '  caused  a  deep  sleep  to  fall  upon  Adam,  and  he 
slept.'  This  citation  helped  to  dispel  prejudice  in  some  quar- 
ters. It  was  seen  that  God  himself  made  use  of  anesthetics 
in  difficult  operations! 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Yet  it  is  impossible  to  predict  what  would  have  been  the 
immediate  fate  of  anesthetics  in  general,  and  chloroform  in 
particular,  had  not  Simpson  unexpectedly  found  an  almighty 
ally,  stronger  than  a  fort  of  facts,  more  powerful  than  an 
arsenal  of  arguments.  Darwin  had  a  first-rate  bulldog  named 
Huxley  which  showed  its  teeth  when  its  gentle  master  was 
attacked,  but  Simpson  had  a  mastiff  that  disarmed  criticism 
and  made  further  abuse  impossible.  Queen  Victoria  was  preg- 
nant ;  there  was  a  quickening  within  the  royal  womb ;  the  day 
for  labor  arrived ;  Dr  Snow  stood  by  her  bedside ;  he  put  some- 
thing on  her  face,  and  the  regal  mother  inhaled  chloroform. 
A  few  years  later  England's  Queen  conceived  once  more,  and 
on  the  approach  of  parturition  again  availed  herself  of  Simp- 
son's anesthetic. 

What  had  become  of  blasphemy?  Where  was  sacrilege 
now?  How  about  that  passage  in  Genesis?  Who  now  dare 
call  anesthesia  an  invention  of  the  devil?  Did  not  God's 
right-hand  favorite  approve  of  it?  Instead  of  a  heretic  Simp- 
son became  a  hero;  he  was  no  longer  a  rebel,  but  a  savior. 

Queen  Victoria  seemed  grateful  to  the  man  who  had  eased 
her  passage  thru  life,  for  in  due  time  the  baker's  son  had 
a  Sir  in  front  of  his  name  and  a  Bart,  after.  The  doctor 
adopted  for  his  coat-of-arms  the  rod  of  ^Esculapius  over  the 
motto  Victo  dolere!  Oxford  gave  him  a  D.  C.  L.,  Edinburgh 
has  his  statue,  and  his  bust  stands  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

The  times  had  changed,  the  times  had  changed.  The  old 
order  perished  and  a  better  rose  from  its  ashes.  A  blessing 
of  inestimable  value  was  conferred  upon  mankind.  He  who 
was  born  of  woman  had  brought  unto  woman  a  boon! 


(1818-1865) 
SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN 

Permit  me  further  to  express  the  holy  joy  with  which  I  studied  your 
work,  Die  Aetiologie.  In  the  course  of  a  conversation  on  the  subject  with 
a  colleague  here,  I  felt  myself  compelled  to  declare:  This  man  is  a 
second  Jenner;  may  his  services  receive  a  similar  recognition  and  his  ef- 
forts bring  him  the  enjoyment  of  a  similar  satisfaction.  ...  It  has 
been  vouchsafed  to  very  few  to  confer  great  and  permanent  benefits  upon 
mankind,  and  with  few  exceptions  the  world  has  crucified  and  burned  its 
benefactors.  I  hope  you  will  not  grow  weary  in  the  honorable  fight 
which  still  remains  before  you. 

Dr  KUGELMANN:  to  Semmelweis. 

THE  great  Lying-in  Hospital  of  Vienna  is  divided  into  two 
sections:  the  first  obstetric  clinic  is  for  medical  students,  and 
the  second  for  midwife-pupils. 

The  medical  profession  has  often  been  accused  of  over- 
drugging,  but  the  Vienna  School  of  the  nineteenth  century 
had  no  materia  medica.  This  school  produced  no  therapeu- 
tists :  it  forgot  that  a  physician  should  sometimes  cure.  '  Doc- 
tor, what  medicine  shall  I  take  ? '  asked  the  invalid  who  had 
been  treated  merely  as  an  object  of  scientific  investigation. 
'  Oh/  exclaimed  the  Viennese  medicus,  as  if  surprised  at  the 
question,  '  that  is  immaterial.'  If  the  sufferer  still  insisted  on 
treatment,  he  was  given  a  standard  prescription  which  the 
apothecary  read  as  follows :  '  ^  —  A  little  bitter-almond  water 
mixed  with  considerable  common  water,  sweetened  and  forti- 
fied with  syrup.' 

Skoda  was  enthusiastic  in  making  diagnoses,  and  Roki- 
tansky  in  performing  autopsies  —  and  if  the  diagnosis  and  the 
autopsy  agreed,  the  patient  was  not  supposed  to  complain. 
The  dissecting-room  was  their  temple,  where  they  devoutly 
prayed  to  be  admitted  to  the  inner  mysteries  of  diseased  or- 
gans. The  cadaver  was  considered  the  noblest  work  of  na- 
ture. The  subject  of  pathologic  anatomy  was  immensely  en- 

251 


252  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

riched,  but  little  was  done  to  heal  the  sick  or  save  the  dying. 
'  Our  ancestors,'  said  Professor  Dietl,  '  laid  much  stress  on  the 
success  of  their  treatment  of  the  sick;  we,  however,  on  the 
result  of  our  investigations.  Our  tendency  is  purely  scien- 
tific. The  physician  should  be  judged  by  the  extent  of  his 
knowledge  and  not  by  the  number  of  his  cures.  It  is  the  in- 
vestigator, not  the  healer,  that  is  to  be  appreciated  in  the 
physician.' 

The  students  whom  we  see  in  the  First  Clinic  have  just 
come  from  post-mortem  examinations,  and  are  waiting  for 
an  instructor  to  take  them  to  the  obstetric  cases.  They  have 
washed  their  hands  with  a  squirt  of  water,  and  are  now  dry- 
ing these  organs  by  blowing  on  them,  waving  them  in  the  air, 
or  sticking  them  in  their  pockets. 

'  Oho,  Marcus,  how  would  you  like  to  have  a  sweetheart 
like  that  ?  '  asks  a  future  accoucheur,  indicating  a  woman  with 
a  meteoric  abdomen. 

'  Why,  Franz,  that  looks  like  the  girl  you  were  walking  with 
last  night' 

'  Oh,  you  old  bugger !  I  was  with  your  own  sister  the 
whole  evening.' 

'  You  lie !  Lilly  said  she  was  going  out  with  a  gentleman, 
so  it  couldn't  have  been  you.' 

'  I  swear  that  I  and  no  other  —  but  Heavens !  how  the 
Fraulein  can  drink!  Tokayer  —  a  bottle;  Pfaffstattner —  a 
bottle ;  Gumpoldskirchener  —  a  bottle.  I  have  no  money  left 
Loan  me  a  few  gulden,  will  you  ?  ' 

'  So  you  can  make  my  sister  drunk?  Why  don't  you  take 
the  girl  to  church?' 

'  Stop  that  squabbliag  about  Fraulein  Lilly,  fellows ;  here 
comes  — ' 

The  teacher  enters  the  clinic,  but  the  amused  smirks  of  the 
students  have  already  been  succeeded  by  studious  looks. 
Their  instructor  is  Professor  Klein's  assistant;  he  answers  to 
the  German  name  of  Dr  Semmelweis,  but  he  is  a  true  Magyar, 
born  in  Budapest,  and  he  speaks  German  with  an  accent  and 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  253 

writes  it  with  a  hitch.  Altho  he  is  getting  bald,  he  is  still 
in  his  twenties :  only  a  few  years  ago  he  lived  and  laughed  in 
the  Josef  stadt  —  the  Latin-Quarter  of  Vienna.  He  is  genial, 
sympathetic,  soft-hearted;  the  quintessence  of  goodness  is  re- 
vealed in  his  open  smile. 

He  leads  the  way  thru  the  wards,  pointing  out  the  interest- 
ing cases,  and  directing  physical  examinations  to  be  made. 

Suddenly  he  stops;  his  brow  contracts  on  the  bridge  of  his 
nose.  Before  him  lies  a  young  mother  exhibiting  the  symp- 
toms of  puerperal  fever.  He  remembers  her  —  three  days 
ago  he  delivered  her  of  a  healthy  infant.  Parent  and  child 
seemed  to  be  doing  well,  but  now  the  curse  of  the  lying-in 
hospital  smites  them.  Unlike  Jules  Clement,  Semmelweis  is 
not  accoucheur  to  Mile  la  Valliere,  or  any  other  royal  mis- 
tress, but  every  servant-girl  entrusted  to  his  care  he  treats  as 
tenderly  as  if  she  were  a  queen  upon  whom  rested  the  hopes 
of  a  dynasty.  For  a  moment  he  forgets  his  students  and  gazes 
with  compassion  at  the  stricken  woman.  A  cold  wave  sweeps 
along  her  spinal  cord,  her  pulse  gallops,  her  skin  is  hot  and 
dry,  her  breathing  short  and  hurried,  her  countenance  sunken 
and  anxious,  and  at  night  she  mutters  in  a  lethal  delirium. 
She  is  sick,  and  next  week  she  will  be  dead. 

The  Assistant  dismisses  the  students  from  his  clinic,  but  he 
cannot  banish  the  subject  from  his  mind.  He  goes  out,  hur- 
ries along  the  Haupt-Allee,  past  the  superb  chestnut  trees,  the 
epauleted  officers,  the  prancing  horses,  the  beautiful  ladies. 

He  walks  unheeding,  while  all  the  time  his  ear-drums  half 
burst  from  the  loud  queries  that  ring  thru  his  head :  Why  do 
they  die?  What  is  childbed  fever?  How  does  it  enter  the 
lying-in  chamber? 

He  has  read  all  the  books  he  could  find  on  the  subject,  and 
the  various  theories  of  distinguished  obstetricians  flit  thru 
his  mind :  '  It  is  due  to  the  milk,'  says  Boer.  '  It  is  epidemic,' 
announces  Klein.  '  It  is  caused  by  lochial  suppression,'  thinks 
Smellie.  '  Miasma  is  responsible  for  it,'  declares  Cruveilhier. 
'  It  is  a  gastric-bilious  disturbance,'  writes  Denman.  '  Its 


254  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

etiology  is  found  in  peritonitis/  argues  Baudelocque.  '  Ery- 
sipelas of  the  bowels  is  the  predisposing  factor,'  opines  Gor- 
don. 

The  conflicting  notions  fill  Dr  Semmelweis  with  despair. 
Who  knows  which  is  the  correct  solution,  or  if  any  are  true? 
We  grope  in  darkness ;  all  is  chaos  and  doubt ;  nothing  is  cer- 
tain—  except  that  the  number  of  women  who  die  in  child- 
birth is  appalling.  In  the  holiest  hour  of  her  life  the  woman 
is  beaten  down  by  an  unknown  hand.  And  the  physicians  who 
should  save  her,  stand  helplessly  by  —  discussing  etiology. 

The  young  doctor  thinks  and  thinks.  He  is  a  favorite  of 
Rokitansky,  and  in  the  early  morning,  before  his  duties  in  the 
hospital  begin,  he  examines  and  operates  on  the  females  who 
died  from  puerperal  fever,  or  any  diseases  peculiar  to  women. 
But  nothing  that  he  has  ever  observed  can  furnish  an  inkling 
of  the  truth. 

What  mystery  of  medicine  is  this  which  carries  off  women 
without  a  determinable  cause?  Pregnancy  is  not  a  nine 
months'  disease;  it  is  natural,  and  healthy  puerperants  should 
not  succumb.  And  here  is  the  strange  part  of  it  all :  the  ma- 
ternity hospital  is  divided  into  two  divisions:  the  first  for 
medical  students,  and  the  second  for  midwives.  The  condi- 
tions are  identical  in  each,  and  yet  so  many  more  die  in  the 
first  division  than  in  the  second.  The  first  clinic  has  long 
had  a  bad  reputation,  and  therefore  the  second  ward  is  always 
more  crowded,  and  yet  the  mortality  continues  to  be  higher 
in  the  first.  Why  should  this  be  ? 

Fear  of  the  first  division  is  claimed  to  have  something  to  do 
with  the  matter.  But  a  psychic  state  can  never  produce  such 
anatomical  changes  as  are  seen  in  puerperal  fever. 

They  say  the  women  are  ashamed  to  undergo  parturition 
in  presence  of  the  men,  and  therefore  die  from  modesty.  But 
how  can  a  condition  of  mind  cause  a  gangrenous  endome- 
trium? 

They  speak  of  epidemic  influences.  But  why  should  an 
epidemic  spare  one  clinic  and  attack  another,  when  both  are 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  265 

under  the  same  roof?  Besides,  when  the  fever  rages  at  its 
worst  in  the  hospital,  the  women  delivered  in  their  homes  are 
not  affected  more  than  usual.  An  epidemic  is  not  limited  by 
walls :  cholera  spreads  over  a  wide  area. 

It  is  said  that  so  many  of  the  women  die  because  they  are 
unmarried  and  have  been  seduced.  But  this  cannot  explain 
the  difference  in  the  mortality  of  the  two  divisions,  since  ex- 
actly the  same  class  of  patients  are  admitted  to  both  clinics. 
Moreover,  nature  never  feels  outraged  because  the  mother 
does  not  possess  a  marriage-ring. 

It  is  argued  that  the  medical  students  examine  the  women 
in  a  rougher  manner  than  do  the  midwives,  and  thus  cause  in- 
jury which  results  in  death.  But  certainly  a  uterus  enlarged 
by  a  fetus  can  tolerate  the  most  ungentle  index  finger. 

They  say  the  ventilation  is  wrong,  but  the  same  method  of 
allowing  air  to  enter  is  employed  in  both  divisions. 

It  is  all  nonsense  to  talk  about  the  diet,  the  warming,  the 
washing.  The  same  caterer  supplies  food  to  both  divisions; 
the  same  washerwomen  clean  the  linen  of  the  first  and  second 
clinic. 

The  women  surprised  by  labor  in  the  streets,  who  give  birth 
to  children  on  door-steps  and  under  arch-ways,  tho  the  day  be 
cold  or  the  night  stormy,  are  not  attacked  by  puerperal  fever. 
Why,  women  of  the  country,  gored  open  and  delivered  of 
their  seed  by  the  horns  of  maddened  bulls,  have  a  better 
chance  of  life  than  the  pregnant  female  who  comes  to  lie  in 
the  First  Obstetric  Clinic  of  Vienna's  Maternity  Hospital. 

Thus  musing,  the  distracted  Assistant  finds  he  has  walked 
far  out  —  to  the  Central  Cemetery,  where  reposes  the  illus- 
trious dust  of  Beethoven  and  Mozart  and  Gluck  and  Schubert. 
But  Semmelweis  is  not  in  a  mood  for  melody.  The  subtle 
and  resistless  onset  of  puerperal  fever,  the  vacant  chair  by 
the  desolated  fireside,  the  straight  road  from  the  marriage-bed 
to  the  dead-house,  the  husband  undone  and  a  baby  for  a  sal- 
aried wet-nurse, —  these  are  the  discords  which  afflict  the 
sensitive  Hungarian  who  has  taken  the  vow  of  Hippocrates. 


356  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

He  has  reached  the  environs  of  Vienna.  In  the  distance, 
seeming  to  come  from  the  left  bank  of  the  Danube,  in  the 
direction  of  the  battlefield  of  Wagram,  he  hears  the  note  of  a 
church-bell.  He  starts  disagreeably  at  the  sound.  He  has 
heard  that  doleful  tone  too  often  of  late.  At  the  Clinic,  when 
the  end  draws  near,  and  the  priest  bears  the  last  sacrament  to 
her  who  bids  the  world  farewell,  a  bell  is  rung  to  mark  the 
passing  of  a  soul.  And  this  frequent,  solemn  tolling  jars 
with  strange  effect  the  nerves  of  the  doctor. 

He  turns  homeward:  the  problem  yet  unsolved,  still  in  the 
grip  of  a  hideous  malady.  Everywhere  is  endless  confusion ; 
only  this  much  proven:  they  die,  they  die,  they  die.  Again 
the  bell  clangs :  it  is  an  exhortation,  O  Semmelweis !  to  be  clear 
of  vision  and  find  the  source  of  childbed  fever,  so  the 
mothers  of  the  race  may  conceive  in  safety,  and  breasts  ripe 
for  nursing  will  not  shrivel  till  the  love-fruit  takes  its  fill. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1847, —  the  .same  year  that  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  became  Professor  of  Anatomy  at  Harvard 
—  Semmelweis  went  for  a  short  vacation  to  Venice,  but  un- 
like Byron,  he  did  not  lean  back  in  a  gondola  with  voluptuous 
languor,  while  a  black-eyed  Venetian  girl  opposite  read  the 
tales  of  Boccaccio. 

On  the  twentieth  of  March  he  returned  to  Vienna,  and  a 
few  hours  later  was  at  his  post,  prepared  to  resume  his  duties 
with  renewed  ardor.  But  the  first  news  he  heard  was  the  sad 
fate  of  Kolletschka,  a  friend  whom  he  highly  esteemed.  Kol- 
letschka  was  Professor  of  Medical  Jurisprudence,  and  while 
performing  a  post-mortem  examination  in  a  medico-legal  case, 
was  accidentally  pricked  on  the  finger  by  the  knife  of  a  pupil. 
Thru  the  tiny  stab-wound  the  poison  from  the  scalpel's  tip 
entered,  and  inflammation  ran  wild  in  the  Professor's  body: 
lymphangitis,  phlebitis,  peritonitis,  pleuritis,  meningitis. 
Blood-vessel  and  lymph-channel  conveyed  the  infection  to  his 
eyes,  and  Kolletschka  was  sightless  and  lifeless  before  Sem- 
melweis returned  from  feeding  the  pigeons  that  fly  below  the 
golden  horses  of  St  Mark. 


257 

As  Semmelweis  listened  to  the  details  of  the  case,  to  him  as 
to  Porphyro  on  a  sweeter  occasion,  '  a  thought  came  like  a 
fullblown  rose,  flushing  his  brow,  and  in  his  pained  heart  made 
purple  riot.'  Lymphangitis,  phlebitis,  peritonitis,  pleuritis, 
meningitis, —  these  were  the  symptoms  observed  in  women  who 
perished  of  puerperal  fever.  Semmelweis  saw  that  Kol- 
letschka  and  the  puerperal  women  died  from  an  identical  cause 
—  from  septic  infection,  from  poisoned  cadaveric  material 
absorbed  by  the  vascular  system.  Puerperal  fever  was  not  a 
malady  unique  in  nature  —  it  was  simply  a  form  of  pyemia ! 

Now  it  became  clear  why  the  mortality  of  the  first  obstetric 
clinic  was  so  much  higher  than  the  second :  the  instruction  of 
the  midwives  did  not  include  work  on  the  cadaver;  therefore 
they  did  not  often  come  into  contact  with  decomposing  organic 
matter.  But  pathologic  anatomy  was  all  the  rage  in  Vienna, 
and  the  medical  student  had  an  overdose  of  dissection.  From 
the  dead-house  they  came  to  the  labor-ward,  and  with  hands 
to  which  the  cadaveric  particles  still  adhered,  poison  lurking 
behind  every  finger-nail,  they  examined  the  pregnant,  par- 
turient, and  puerperal  women.  And  the  gaping  genitals 
freshly  wounded  by  travail,  the  denuded  surface  of  the  vagina, 
the  fissures  about  the  fourchette,  the  lacerations  near  the 
mouth  of  the  womb,  easily  sucked  up  the  noxious  virus  that 
spelled  disaster  and  death. 

A  little  later  Semmelweis  discovered  that  not  only  decom- 
posing cadaveric  matter,  but  that  putrid  matter  derived  from 
living  organisms,  and  even  the  atmosphere  when  overloaded 
with  foul  exhalations,  may  produce  the  dreaded  septicemia. 
After  this,  the  students  who  came  to  the  First  Clinic  found  a 
new  rule :  before  touching  a  woman  they  must  disinfect  their 
hands  with  a  solution  of  chlorinated  lime.  This  was  the  in- 
troduction of  antisepsis  into  obstetrics.  Immediately  the 
slaughtering  of  the  mothers  was  lessened,  and  soon  —  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Vienna  Lying-in  Hospital  —  the 
mortality  in  the  First  Division  fell  below  that  of  the  Second 
Division.  A  chunk  of  chloride  of  lime  upsetting  a  hundred 


258  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

theories,  accomplished  this  miracle.  Now  to  proclaim  the 
Doctrine  to  the  whole  world ! 

Semmelweis  had  reason  to  congratulate  himself:  the  next 
day  the  three  greatest  men  in  Vienna  were  his  disciples. 
Skoda  referred  to  his  discovery  as  one  of  the  most  important 
in  the  domain  of  medicine.  Rokitansky  at  once  accepted  his 
new  etiology  of  puerperal  fever.  Lest  it  be  deemed  strange 
that  a  man  whose  days  were  spent  in  the  dissecting-room 
should  be  so  alive  to  new  ideas,  we  must  say  that  Rokitansky 
kept  sweet  and  sane  by  memorizing  Kant  and  marrying  a 
singer.  Hebra,  who  knew  so  much  about  itch  that  we  call 
him  the  Father  of  Modern  Dermatology,  was  editor  of  the 
Journal  of  the  Medical  Society  of  Vienna,  and  wrote  a  couple 
of  articles  in  which  he  linked  the  name  of  Semmelweis  with 
that  of  Edward  Jenner.  In  return  for  the  compliment,  Sem- 
melweis acted  as  accoucheur  in  Frau  Hebra's  next  confine- 
ment, and  his  skilled  and  sterilized  hands  delivered  the  good 
woman  in  safety. 

But  not  many  were  as  clear-headed  as  this  triumvirate,  and 
misoneism, —  that  insidious  inertia  of  the  mind  which  makes 
mankind  averse  to  innovation, —  soon  asserted  itself  in  clinic, 
hospital  and  lecture-room.  Semmelweis  awoke  and  found 
himself  famous  —  and  hated. 

At  this  period,  however,  something  happened  in  Europe 
which  caused  even  Semmelweis  to  forget  puerperal  fever.  A 
nobler  fever  attacked  Mother  Earth  —  the  fever  of  1848. 
This  was  the  year  in  which  barricades  rose  like  magic  to  the 
sound  of  the  singing  of  the  Marseillaise;  the  year  of  Mazzini 
and  the  Roman  Republic;  the  year  of  Garibaldi  and  his  red- 
shirts;  the  year  of  flying  popes  and  abdicating  emperors;  the 
year  of  overturned  thrones  and  angry  peoples ;  the  year  when 
the  workingman's  pike  was  aimed  at  the  monarch's  scepter; 
the  year  of  endless  courage  and  divine  defiance;  the  year  of 
young  blood  and  new  life. 

Knout-cursed  Russia  did  not  tug  at  her  chains,  but  every 
other  nation  leaped  up  in  fiery  revolt.  Of  course,  Austria  was 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  259 

all  turmoil,  for  Austria,  the  lengthened  shadow  of  Metternich, 
was  the  chief  oppressor  of  western  Europe.  The  university 
students  of  Vienna,  cursing  the  prince's  cruelty,  broke  into 
Metternich's  home,  and  drove  the  old  monster  over  the  con- 
tinent. 

Professors  and  pupils,  physicians  and  lawyers,  formed  an 
Academic  Legion.  Ferdinand  Hebra,  tho  more  accustomed 
to  dermatologic  eruptions  than  to  political  ones,  enrolled  as  a 
member.  Ludwig  Frankl,  the  Jewish  poet-physician,  joined 
the  students;  he  wrote  Die  Universitat,  which  twenty  com- 
posers set  to  music,  while  half  a  million  copies  went  thru  Aus- 
tria and  Germany.  Ernst  Krackowizer,  the  first  person  in 
Vienna  on  whom  the  anesthetic  properties  of  chloroform  were 
tried,  unsheathed  his  sword  for  freedom.  And  when  the 
reactionary  Professor  Klein  walked  thru  his  clinic,  whom 
should  he  see  arrayed  in  the  uniform  of  the  revolutionary 
Legion,  but  his  assistant,  Dr  Ignaz  Philipp  Semmelweis.  He 
could  hardly  recognize  him  at  first  because  of  the  broad  hat 
with  the  waving  plume.  And  what  was  it  he  held  in  his 
hand  —  a  scalpel  or  a  sword  ?  Hippocrates  was  supplanted 
by  Louis  Kossuth. 

In  Berlin  the  worthiest  sons  of  ^Esculapius  acted  in  the 
same  way.  Rudolph  Virchow  was  deprived  of  his  posts  by 
the  Prussian  authorities,  and  another  turn  of  the  fickle  wheel 
of  fortune  might  have  snuffed  out  his  life.  Physicians  have 
not  yet  discovered  the  drug  that  ensures  perpetual  youth,  and 
few  who  wanned  their  hearts  in  the  sacred  blaze  of  1848, 
are  now  alive.  Yet  we  all  know  one  physician  who  was  then 
in  prison  for  liberty's  sake,  and  still  lives  and  practices  his 
profession,  and  has  recently  become  the  President  of  the  Amer- 
ican Medical  Association:  Ave  Magister,  Abraham  Jacobi! 

Magyar-land,  under  the  brilliant  leadership  of  Kossuth,  was 
gaining  its  independence.  But  the  strong  Czar  poured  his 
armies  into  Austria,  and  a  hundred  thousand  armed  Russians 
trampled  out  Hungary's  freedom.  The  flame  of  rebellion 
flickered  low,  and  1849  was  tne  vear  °f  reaction.  The  barri- 


260  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

cades  were  razed  to  the  ground,  the  Marseillaise  were  sung  no 
more,  the  aspirations  were  quenched,  the  monarchs  returned, 
a  host  of  revolutionaries  —  those  who  escaped  death  and  dun- 
geons —  flocked  to  England  and  America,  while  several  who 
were  not  too  deeply  compromised  sought  to  resume  their  for- 
mer positions. 

Semmelweis  came  back  to  the  Obstetric  Clinic,  and  found 
a  new  proof  of  the  truth  of  his  doctrine :  during  the  month  of 
March,  1848,  such  excitement  had  prevailed  in  Vienna,  that 
the  parturient  women  in  the  lying-in  hospital  were  practically 
neglected,  and  that  was  the  only  month  in  which  not  a  single 
death  or  sickness  occurred. 

Semmelweis  and  his  companions  decided  to  carry  on  their 
propaganda,  not  thru  pamphlets  or  the  press,  but  by  private 
letters  addressed  to  various  teachers  of  midwifery. 

Professor  Michaelis  of  Kiel,  whose  work  on  the  Obliquely 
Contracted  Pelvis  is  still  famous,  received  one  of  these  letters 
and  was  impressed  by  the  contents.  Michaelis,  a  conscientious 
man,  was  much  worried  over  the  prevalence  of  puerperal  fever 
in  his  clinic.  In  fact,  not  being  able  to  cope  with  the  situa- 
tion, he  found  it  necessary  to  close  the  hospital  for  a  time. 
He  now  introduced  Semmelweis's  method  of  chlorine  disinfec- 
tion, watching  results,  and  the  outcome  was  this:  no  more 
puerperal  fever.  Michaelis  was  profoundly  grateful,  and  re- 
garded Semmelweis  as  a  benefactor  of  the  human  race. 

A  scourge  abolished!  The  excellent  professor  hummed  in 
satisfaction,  but  a  shooting  pain  broke  off  the  song  on  the 
penult  of  a  word.  His  niece,  his  beloved  niece  —  what  dreams 
she  had  when  she  felt  her  babe  move  within  her  —  already  in 
anticipation  she  saw  her  child  climb  to  distinguished  heights 
—  how  anxious  she  was  to  sew  a  coverlet  with  which  to  warm 
the  little  stranger  on  his  first  appearance — and  she  had 
trusted  her  uncle  —  so  innocently  she  had  looked  up  in  his 
face  and  put  her  doubly-precious  life  in  his  hands  —  and  with 
these  same  hands  he  had  murdered  her  —  with  these  stained 
hands  he  had  conveyed  puerperal  fever  to  her,  and  her  dreams 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  261 

were  done  —  she  wrapped  the  sheets  of  the  childbed  around 
her  as  a  snowy  shroud,  and  said  Good-by,  and  died.  The 
warm-hearted  Michaelis  recoiled  at  the  unlivable  horror  of  the 
thing.  Something  sticky  seemed  to  cling  to  his  fingers. 
These  fingers  killed  her,  and  she  did  not  even  reproach  him. 
But  how  the  keen  voice  of  remorse  breathed  hot  into  his  ear. 
Michaelis  rushed  from  his  house.  His  darkened  eyes  saw 
nothing,  but  he  heard  a  train  with  snorting  breath  rumble 
over  the  parallel  rails.  He  advanced  feverishly,  threw  him- 
self upon  the  trackway,  and  when  the  locomotive  passed  there 
was  only  a  book  on  The  Contracted  Pelvis  to  keep  alive  the 
name  and  fame  of  Professor  G.  A.  Michaelis  of  Kiel.  So  the 
gospel  of  Semmelweis  was  sanctified  by  a  martyr's  blood. 

Semmelweis  was  likewise  forced  to  admit  that  he  himself 
had  been  the  harbinger  of  death  in  many  households :  *  When 
an  assistant  took  special  interest  in  pathologic  anatomy,  and 
made  many  post-mortem  examinations,  the  mortality  was 
high.  Consequently  must  I  here  make  my  confession  that 
God  only  knows  the  number  of  women  whom  I  have  con- 
signed prematurely  to  the  grave.  I  have  occupied  myself 
with  the  cadaver  to  an  extent  reached  by  few  obstetricians. 
However  painful  and  depressing  the  recognition  may  be, 
there  is  no  advantage  in  concealment ;  if  the  misfortune  is  not 
to  remain  permanent,  the  truth  must  be  brought  home  to  all 
concerned.' 

Correspondence  was  also  entered  into  with  Simpson  of 
Edinburgh,  who  introduced  anesthesia  into  obstetrics  the  same 
year  that  Semmelweis  introduced  antisepsis.  Simpson  read 
the  letter  in  haste,  and  replied  with  a  Scotch  accent:  He 
knew  without  being  told  how  filthy  the  maternity  hospitals  in 
Germany  and  Austria  were;  he  knew  that  the  high  mortality 
was  due  to  the  criminal  carelessness  of  placing  a  healthy  ly- 
ing-in woman  on  the  same  bedclothes  and  linen  in  which  a 
parturient  woman  had  just  died;  if  Semmelweis  and  his 
friends  would  take  the  trouble  to  read  British  obstetric  litera- 
ture they  would  see  that  Englishmen  had  long  been  aware  of 


262  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

the  contagious  character  of  puerperal  disease  and  had  em- 
ployed chlorine  disinfection  for  its  prevention. 

From  the  above  it  will  be  seen  that  Professor  Simpson  con- 
fused the  English  theory  of  the  specific  contagiousness  of 
puerperal  fever  —  a  disease  communicated  by  the  sick  puer- 
perant  to  the  healthy  one,  or  transmitted  by  the  physician  who 
had  confined  a  woman  suffering  from  the  malady  —  with  the 
Semmelweis  doctrine  of  its  causation  by  the  absorption  of 
putrid  matter  from  a  living  organism  or  cadaver,  producing 
a  pyemic  blood-dissolution. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  these  English  opinions  were  copied 
and  adopted  in  1843  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  in  his  im- 
mortal essay,  '  The  Contagiousness  of  Puerperal  Fever.'  Yet 
in  Siebold's  standard  History  of  Obstetrics  there  is  no  men- 
tion of  Dr  Holmes.  Such  accidents  seem  liable  to  occur: 
Baker  Brown  actually  wrote  an  historical  sketch  of  Ovariot- 
omy without  referring  to  Ephraim  McDowell.  It  is  true 
Holmes  did  not  devote  much  time  to  puerperal  sepsis.  He 
wrote  his  one  essay  on  the  subject,  and  set  it  adrift  in  a  quar- 
terly medical  magazine  which  suspended  publication  within  a 
year.  But  the  man  and  his  work  could  not  perish  —  es- 
pecially as  the  eminent  Professor  Meigs  denounced  him  with 
the  same  virulence  that  he  opposed  Simpson's  use  of  chloro- 
form in  labor.  There  is  no  passage  in  medical  literature  more 
frequently  quoted  than  Holmes'  concluding  appeal :  '  The 
woman  about  to  become  a  mother,  or  with  new-born  infant 
upon  her  bosom,  should  be  the  object  of  trembling  care  and 
sympathy  wherever  she  bears  her  tender  burden,  or  stretches 
her  aching  limbs.  The  very  outcast  of  the  streets  has  pity 
upon  her  sister  in  degradation,  when  the  seal  of  promised  ma- 
ternity is  impressed  upon  her.  The  remorseless  vengeance  of 
the  law,  brought  down  upon  its  victims  by  a  machinery  as  sure 
as  destiny,  is  arrested  in  its  fall  at  a  word  which  reveals  her 
transient  claim  for  mercy.  The  solemn  prayer  of  the  liturgy 
singles  out  her  sorrows  from  the  multiplied  trials  of  life,  to 
plead  for  her  in  the  hour  of  peril.  God  forbid  that  any  mem- 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  263 

her  of  the  profession  to  which  she  trusts  her  life,  doubly  pre- 
cious at  that  eventful  period,  should  hazard  it  negligently,  un- 
advisedly, or  selfishly.' 

A  closer  examination  of  the  subject  convinced  Simpson  that 
the  English  and  the  Semmelweis  etiology  were  not  identical, 
and  since  he  was  J.  Y.  Simpson,  he  acknowledged  his  mis- 
take. From  that  time  on,  aided  by  his  well-known  assistant, 
Matthews  Duncan,  he  preached  the  truth  regarding  puerperal 
sepsis,  and  it  was  due  chiefly  to  the  efforts  of  his  school  that 
British  obstetrics  outstripped  and  long  outranked  the  con- 
tinental tokology. 

About  this  period,  an  honor  was  conferred  upon  Semmel- 
weis. Dr  Karl  Haller,  an  influential  man,  a  director  and 
senior  physician  of  the  General  Hospital,  suggested  that  Sem- 
melweis be  invited  to  address  the  Vienna  Medical  Society  on 
his  experience  with  puerperal  fever.  The  motion  was 
adopted,  but  Semmelweis  voted  in  the  negative.  In  truth,  he 
had  never  spoken  to  an  audience,  and  the  mere  thought  of  it 
gave  him  stage-fright  —  an  evil  which  a  solution  of  chlorine 
could  not  remove.  Finally  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  appear, 
and  he  produced  an  excellent  impression.  The  discussion  that 
followed  was  certainly  pleasing  to  Semmelweis.  Rokitansky, 
who  presided,  spoke  in  his  favor ;  brave  Chiari  —  son-in-law 
of  Klein  —  voiced  his  approval;  Helm  and  Arneth  called  the 
young  discoverer  a  benefactor,  while  Skoda,  Hebra,  and  Hal- 
ler applauded. 

It  was  a  great  triumph  for  the  humble  assistant,  but  it 
aroused  his  enemies  to  action.  Rosas  cursed  him;  Klein 
frowned  heavily  when  he  met  him ;  Scanzoni  —  the  snake  of 
midwifery  who  rattled  his  fangs  also  at  Simpson  —  poured 
venom  at  him;  Bamberger  attacked  him;  Kiwisch  insulted 
him ;  Lumpe  laughed  at  him ;  Seyf ert  spat  at  him. 

By  this  time  Semmelweis's  assistantship  had  expired,  and 
he  applied  for  an  extension  of  two  years  more,  as  his  prede- 
cessor in  the  First  Clinic  and  his  colleague  in  the  Second  Clinic 
had  successfully  done.  But  the  authorities  were  against  Sem- 


264  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

melweis.  It  was  not  forgotten  that  he  had  served  in  the 
Academic  Legion.  The  stupid  Klein  took  his  revenge ;  his 
pursed-up  lips  meant,  '  I  want  to  be  rid  of  you.'  Semmelweis 
then  petitioned  to  be  appointed  Privat-Dozent  of  Midwifery. 
After  a  rather  long  wait  —  from  March,  1849,  till  October, 
1850  —  he  received  the  position,  but  with  galling  restrictions; 
he  could  not  grant  certificates  of  attendance  like  other  dozen- 
ten,  and  he  could  demonstrate  not  on  the  cadaver,  only  on  the 
manikin.  Semmelweis  was  an  emotional  man.  He  was  a 
scientist,  but  with  the  artistic  temperament.  He  was  terribly 
enraged,  and  made  up  his  mind  to  shake  the  dust  of  Vienna 
from  his  feet.  He  acted  unreasonably,  and  did  not  call  upon 
Rokitansky;  he  did  not  bid  farewell  to  Hebra;  he  did  not 
shake  hands  with  Skoda.  He  simply  packed  up  his  belong- 
ings, and  started  for  Budapest.  Ignaz  Semmelweis  is  a  type 
that  Tragedy  loves  to  mark  as  her  own:  intense,  impractical, 
uncompromising.  Too  unworldly  to  look  after  his  personal 
interests,  too  honest  to  make  terms  with  popular  falsehood, 
he  was  predestined  for  the  road  of  bitterness,  and  the  crown 
of  thorns  awaited  him. 

Twelve  years  ago,  as  a  pleasant  youth  of  nineteen,  Semmel- 
weis had  left  Budapest  to  enter  the  University  of  Vienna. 
Now  he  came  back  to  his  birthplace,  immortal  but  unsuccess- 
ful. His  home-coming  was  not  a  happy  one.  His  parents 
were  dead;  his  brothers,  who  had  taken  their  share  in  the 
revolution  of  1848,  were  refugees;  there  remained  to  him  only 
one  brother,  who  was  a  parson,  and  one  sister,  who  was  mar- 
ried. 

The  sight  of  houses  and  landmarks  intimately  known  in 
former  days  brought  back  a  thousand  reccollections  of  boy- 
hood, and  he  could  but  smile  that  so  many  trivial  and  even 
silly  incidents  should  crowd  upon  his  memory.  After  all,  he 
was  not  sorry  to  leave  Vienna,  and  he  whistled  a  snatch  from 
Petofi,  but  stopped  in  amazement  to  look  at  the  majestic  Sus- 
pension Bridge  which  had  been  completed  the  year  before 
by  the  English  engineers,  Tiernay  and  Adam  Clark.  Then 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  265 

he  strolled  reminiscently  thru  the  street  where  his  father  had 
kept  a  shop. 

Semmelweis  felt  a  subtle  sympathy  for  his  country,  which, 
like  himself,  had  been  conquered  by  the  powers  of  darkness: 
stabbed  by  Windischgratz,  hanged  by  Haynau,  knouted  by 
Nicholas.  Only  a  year  before  Semmelweis  returned  to  Buda- 
pest, Louis  Batthyani,  the  distinguished  Hungarian  patriot, 
had  been  caught  there,  court-martialed,  and  shot.  The  prison- 
odor  still  clung  to  Balassa,  the  professor  of  surgery.  Sem- 
melweis did  not  really  escape  Vienna :  all  over  Hungary's  capi- 
tal the  superfluous  men  known  as  state-agents  eavesdropped 
and  peeped;  spies  —  nasty,  sneaky,  crawling,  slimy  creatures, 
forever  pilloried  by  the  grim  pen  of  Maxim  Gorky. 

The  Hungarian  Academy  of  Sciences  was  closed  by  pleas- 
ure of  the  law,  and  the  Medical  Society  of  Pest  could  not  meet 
unless  a  policeman  was  present.  Semmelweis  sighed  —  what 
else  was  there  to  do?  He  claimed  he  did  not  know  how  to 
write,  so  he  could  not  find  solace  in  the  ink-bottle.  But  he 
seemed  to  experiment  on  the  value  of  doing  nothing.  He  who 
had  been  indefatigable  became  the  apostle  of  apathy,  the  lord 
of  laziness,  a  very  prince  of  procrastination. 

But  such  a  state  of  affairs  could  not  last  long:  Professor 
Klein  did  not  send  Semmelweis  money  to  live  upon.  Sem- 
melweis had  his  choice:  either  make  an  honest  living  as  a 
respectable  member  of  organized  society,  or  join  a  roving 
gypsy-band  and  pitch  a  tent  and  swing  a  kettle  on  any  hillside 
—  in  which  occupation  he  would  have  been  as  comfortable  as 
a  frog  in  acetic  acid. 

When  Rogers  saw  Lord  Brougham  ride  off  one  morning, 
he  remarked,  '  There  go  Solon,  Lycurgus,  Demosthenes,  Ar- 
chimedes, Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  a  great 
many  more  all  in  one  post-chaise.'  A  similar  compliment 
could  not  be  paid  to  Semmelweis.  He  was  not  a  versatile 
man.  He  knew  his  branch  of  medicine,  and  nothing  more. 
In  fact,  he  was  a  man  of  one  idea  —  but  it  was  a  great  idea. 

Semmelweis  now  petitioned  to  be  appointed  director  of  the 


266  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Obstetric  Division  of  the  St  Rochus  Hospital,  a  cheerful  in- 
stitution, with  windows  suggestively  overlooking  the  cemetery. 
His  application  was  successful,  and  as  soon  as  he  entered  he 
introduced  chlorine  disinfection.  The  mortality  at  the  hos- 
pital decreased  so  swiftly  and  surely  that  the  fame  of  Dr  Sem- 
melweis  spread  thruout  Budapest.  It  boomed  too  his  private 
practice;  his  office  now  contained  more  than  one  patient  at  a 
time. 

Thus  matters  went  on  for  about  five  years;  then  Hofrath 
Birly,  the  incumbent  of  the  chair  of  midwifery  in  the  uni- 
versity, was  elegized  by  his  friends,  and  wreaths  were  placed 
upon  his  coffin.  A  professorship  —  fortunately  —  is  not 
hereditary,  and  the  question  arose:  Who  will  succeed  old 
Birly?  It  is  pleasant  to  record  that,  in  July,  1855,  Ignaz  Sem- 
melweis  was  appointed  Professor  of  Theoretical  and  Practical 
Midwifery  in  the  University  of  Pest. 

There  is  no  tonic  in  any  Pharmacopeia  equal  to  the  elixir 
of  success.  Success  —  it  is  iron,  mother's  salve,  digitalis,  cap- 
sicum plaster,  catarrh  snuff,  Godfrey's  cordial,  Hoffman's 
anodyne,  Seidlitz  powder,  brandy  and  hasheesh  all  in  one. 
Success  purifies  the  blood,  it  draws  the  tip  of  the  chin  in,  it 
throws  back  the  shoulders,  it  straightens  the  spinal  column, 
it  gives  color  to  the  cheeks,  and  brings  luster  to  the  eye.  The 
Herr  Imperial  Royal  Professor  Semmelweis  walked  with  a 
jaunty  air.  He  was  enthusiastic,  and  determined  to  make 
Budapest  the  medical  Mecca  of  the  world. 

When  an  affectionate  bachelor  finds  himself  living  on  Easy 
Street,  he  is  apt  to  speculate  in  the  matrimonnial  market,  es- 
pecially if  a  sweet  girl  like  Marie  Weidenhofer  seems  to  be 
fond  of  him.  Ignaz  was  a  bald-headed  professor  of  thirty- 
eight;  Marie  was  a  charming  fraulein  of  eighteen,  but  they 
now  promised  to  love  each  other  as  long  as  they  lived,  and 
never  to  quarrel,  or  cause  each  other  jealousy.  How  it  hap- 
pened that  a  shy  man  like  Semmelweis  took  advantage  of  the 
psychological  moment  is  more  than  we  can  presume  to  explain. 
The  best  we  can  do  is  to  quote  from  Lillian  Bell,  who  exposes 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  £67 

all  the  secrets  of  sex :  '  Proposing,'  claims  this  lady,  '  requires 
a  sort  of  plunge;  a  burst  of  courage;  a  bravery  which  must 
be  pumped  up  for  the  occasion,  and  that  sort  of  thing  your 
shy  man  is  used  to.  He  cannot  even  ask  a  girl  to  take  a  walk 
with  him  without  perspiring  under  his  hatband,  so  he  is  ac- 
customed to  being  afraid  and  going  home  without  having 
done  it  and  then  longing  for  it  in  secret,  and  finally,  goaded 
to  desperation,  of  making  a  bolt  for  it.  That  is  the  history 
of  his  daily  emotional  life.' 

It  is  fortunate  that  Semmelweis  could  now  find  consolation 
at  home,  for  the  school-year  1857-8  was  a  frightful  one:  four 
per  centum  of  the  women  in  his  Lying-in  Hospital  died  from 
puerperal  fever.  How  Carl  Braun  and  Scanzoni  would  jeer 
at  him!  What  was  the  cause  of  this  dreadful  slaughter? 
When  Semmelweis  had  first  assumed  charge  of  the  obstetric 
clinic,  he  found  that  the  women  lay  '  upon  filthy  sheets  which 
actually  stank  of  decomposed  blood  and  lochia.'  Enraged  at 
the  circumstance,  he  pulled  the  unclean  linen  from  the  beds, 
gathered  it  into  a  pile,  and  rushed  to  von  Tandler,  the  official 
in  charge.  '  Smell !  '  shouted  Semmelweis,  shoving  the  foul 
bundle  under  his  nose.  After  this  practical  appeal  to  the  ol- 
factory organ  of  the  Statthaltereirath,  the  laundry  contractor 
was  requested  to  wash  the  soiled  linen  before  returning  it.  So 
the  Lying-in  Hospital  now  had  clean  sheets,  chlorine  disinfec- 
tion of  course  was  employed,  and  yet  here  was  a  mortality  of 
4  per  cent.  What  evil  agency  was  at  work,  destroying  lives 
with  an  invisible  hand  ?  Semmelweis  did  not  sleep  till  he  dis- 
covered the  cause :  a  careless  nurse.  Either  some  students  had 
bribed  her  to  disobey  the  professor,  or  she  herself  had  no  in- 
terest in  his  hobby,  because  she  made  it  a  rule  never  to  go  to 
the  trouble  of  changing  sheets,  even  in  the  bed  in  which  a  pa- 
tient died  from  puerperal  fever.  An  expensive  idiosyncrasy:  it 
cost  1 8  out  of  449  lying-in  women  their  lives.  Semmelweis 
discharged  the  culprit  whose  treachery  had  brought  about  the 
four  per  centum  mortality.  A  nurse  trained  in  his  own  pro- 
phylaxis —  it  was  enough  to  make  a  man  go  mad. 


268  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

Semmelweis  indeed  had  reason  to  be  unhappy.  His  Doc- 
trine made  little  headway.  He  could  not  lift  the  boulder  of 
prejudice  that  lay  in  the  path  of  medical  progress. 

Primerose  and  Riolan  attacked  Harvey's  discovery,  but 
denial  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  never  injured  anyone's 
health.  Many  did  not  accept  Newton's  law  of  gravitation, 
but  this  stupidity  was  not  followed  by  symptoms  of  pyemia. 
Dr  Ohm  was  considered  unbalanced,  but  failure  to  comprehend 
the  unit  of  electrical  resistance  did  not  result  in  phlebitis. 
Galvani  was  ridiculed  as  the  frog's  dancing-master,  but  ina- 
bility to  appreciate  the  value  of  galvinism  never  caused  lym- 
phangitis. Cuvier  vanquished  Lamarck,  scoffed  at  the  idea 
of  fossil  man,  and  pitched  the  bones  out  of  the  window  in  a 
rage.  Scientific  progress  was  thus  hindered,  and  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution  delayed  for  a  generation,  but  no  man  died  from 
metastases  because  he  failed  to  greet  the  monkeys  in  the  zoo- 
logical garden  as  his  long-lost  cousins. 

But  to  hold  erroneous  views  on  the  etiology  of  puerperal 
fever  meant  that  thousands  of  wrongly-trained  practitioners 
and  midwives  went  yearly  forth  to  spread  disease  and  death; 
it  meant  that  countless  hosts  of  mothers  were  wantonly  mas- 
sacred in  state-supported  murder-dens.  '  To  be  laid  on  the 
confinement  bed,'  said  Fritsch, '  was  the  same  as  to  be  delivered 
to  the  hangman.' 

As  late  as  1860-3,  Achilles  Rose  was  a  student  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Jena,  and  he  records  that  during  that  period  no 
lying-in  woman  left  the  institution  alive.  '  All  died,'  he 
writes,  '  from  puerperal  fever.  Disinfection  of  the  hands,  in- 
sisted upon  by  Semmelweis,  had  not  received  any  considera- 
tion, even  by  such  an  eminent  man  as  Professor  Schultze.' 

But  an  intellectual  giant  —  beside  whom  the  eminent  Prof. 
Schultze  was  insignificant  —  saw  no  good  in  Semmelweis. 
To  claim  that  Virchow  is  one  of  the  greatest  sons  of  Hippoc- 
rates is  unnecessary,  because  it  is  undisputed.  But  there  was 
this  difference  between  the  Greek  and  the  German:  the  latter 
had  limitations.  His  opposition  to  Semmelweis  was  by  no 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  269 

means  his  only  sin.  Certainly  his  attitude  on  the  germ  ques- 
tion was  not  to  his  credit :  '  I  must  ask  my  friend  Klebs  to 
pardon  me,'  he  said,  '  if,  notwithstanding  the  late  advances 
made  by  the  doctrine  of  infectious  fungi,  I  still  persist  in  my 
reserve  as  far  as  to  admit  only  the  fungus  which  is  really 
proved,  while  I  deny  all  other  fungi  so  long  as  they  are  not 
actually  brought  before  me.'  When  Haeckel  desired  that 
Evolution  be  included  in  the  curricula  of  the  public  schools, 
Virchow  took  the  contrary  view  —  with  vehemence.  Vir- 
chow  claimed  there  was  an  essential  difference  between  the 
skull  of  primitive  man  and  the  ape,  arguing  that  no  human 
being  had  an  orbital  stricture  as  pronounced  as  is  found  in 
the  Pithecanthropus.  The  words  were  hardly  out  of  his 
mouth  when  Nehring  found  a  skull  of  a  Brazilian  Indian  in 
the  Sambaquis  of  Santos,  in  which  the  stricture  was  deeper 
than  in  many  of  the  apes.  And  then  how  puerile  was  Vir- 
chow's  warning,  'Darwinism  leads  to  Socialism!'  Since 
when  has  it  been  the  duty  of  the  scientist  to  worry  what  any- 
thing leads  to?  It  is  the  function  of  the  scientist  to  find  the 
fact  and  accept  the  conclusion,  be  it  saccharin  or  gall.  It  may 
be  unpleasant  to  contemplate  that  man  is  a  freak  of  nature, 
and  will  ultimately  disappear  from  the  earth,  but  if  such  be 
the  facts,  then  scientists  must  announce  them,  or  cease  to  lay 
claim  to  the  title  of  truth-seekers.  Virchow's  admonition  de- 
serves to  be  placed  by  the  side  of  Agassiz's  complaint,  '  Dar- 
winism seeks  to  dethrone  God,  and  replace  him  by  a  blind 
force  called  the  law  of  evolution.'  Virchow's  attitude  towards 
Darwinism  was  so  unfair,  that  the  ever-gentle  Darwin,  who 
could  rarely  be  provoked  to  retort,  wrote  to  Haeckel,  '  Vir- 
chow's conduct  is  shameful,  and  I  trust  he  will  one  day  feel 
the  shame  of  it.'  But  Virchow  evidently  did  not  repent,  for 
as  late  as  1894,  at  the  Anthropological  Congress  in  Vienna,  he 
said,  '  a  man  might  just  as  well  have  descended  from  a  sheep 
or  an  elephant  as  from  an  ape.'  Virchow,  in  later  years,  liked 
to  speak  of  '  the  point  where  science  makes  its  compromise 
with  the  church.'  Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  why  Virchow 


270  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

is  thrice  quoted  with  approval  in  J.  J.  Walsh's  The  Popes  and 
Science,  an  alleged  medico-historical  volume,  recommended  by 
Archbishop  Farley  and  dedicated  to  Pius  X  on  Our  Lady's 
Day.  Shall  we  say  of  Virchow  as  Nietzsche  said  of  Wagner : 
'He  succumbs  at  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ?'  But  Father 
Time  has  amusing  little  tricks  of  his  own :  yesterday,  Rudolph 
Virchow,  the  scientific  founder  of  cellular  pathology,  rejected 
Darwinism,  and  to-day  the  Jesuits  themselves  are  accepting 
it! 

Semmelweis  now  saw  that  he  must  do  what  he  had  long 
declared  he  could  not  do  —  write  a  book.  '  I  cannot  write,' 
he  told  his  devoted  friend  Markusovsky,  who  continually 
urged  him.  '  I  have  a  congenital  aversion  to  all  that  is 
called  writing.'  But  the  groans  of  the  lying-in  women  dying 
of  childbed  fever  caused  by  the  pupils  that  Carl  Braun  and 
Scanzoni  sent  out  into  the  world,  thrust  the  pen  into  unwilling 
fingers. 

One  day  in  1860  Dr  Hirschler  was  strolling  along  the 
streets,  when  he  was  seized  by  an  excited  individual  who  in- 
sisted that  he  come  to  his  home  at  once.  Dr  Hirschler  com- 
plied with  the  urgent  demand,  and  no  sooner  did  the  friends 
seat  themselves  than  the  host  opened  a  drawer,  pulled  out  a 
huge  manuscript,  and  began :  '  My  Doctrine  is  not  established 
in  order  that  the  book  expounding  it  may  molder  in  the  dust 
of  a  library :  my  Doctrine  has  a  mission,  and  that  is  to  bring 
blessings  into  practical  social  life.  My  Doctrine  is  produced 
in  order  that  it  may  be  disseminated  by  teachers  of  midwifery, 
until  all  who  practice  medicine,  down  to  the  last  village  doctor 
and  the  last  village  midwife,  may  act  according  to  its  princi- 
ples; my  Doctrine  is  produced  in  order  to  banish  the  terror 
from  the  lying-in  hospitals,  to  preserve  the  wife  to  the  hus- 
band, the  mother  to  the  child.' 

So  Hirschler  learnt  that  Semmelweis  had  at  last  completed 
his  book :  The  Etiology,  Nature,  and  Prophylaxis  of  Puerperal 
Fever.  Semmelweis  had  underrated  his  literary  ability:  he 
could  write.  As  far  as  its  scientific  value  is  concerned,  no 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  271 

praise  can  be  too  high:  page  after  page  could  stand,  without 
revision,  in  the  most  modern  treatise  on  the  topic.  Arnold 
Lea's  Puerperal  Infection  just  off  the  press  and  fresh  from 
the  bindery,  does  not  antiquate  Semmelweis's  work  —  it  sup- 
plements it. 

But  the  book  did  not  sell.  And  the  lecture-rooms  still  re- 
echoed with  ancient  nonsense  about  epidemic  puerperal  fever, 
while  the  examining  finger  and  the  operating  hand  still  com- 
mitted murder.  Semmelweis  called  his  discovery  '  the  puer- 
peral sun  which  arose  in  Vienna  in  1847,'  but  its  rays  were 
dimmed  by  Breisky  mist  and  obscured  by  Carl  Braun 
clouds. 

Semmelweis  was  a  disappointed  man.  He  became  bitter, 
irritable,  old.  Sometimes  when  he  smiled  to  his  wife,  she 
saw  how  weary  he  was.  But  Semmelweis  had  learnt  the  lure 
of  writing,  and  the  pen  was  now  his  constant  companion. 
And  this  instrument  which  he  had  hitherto  feared  became  in 
his  hands  a  burning  lash  and  a  flaming  sword. 

In  Disraeli's  Quarrels  of  Authors,  there  is  no  controversy 
more  fierce  than  Semmelweis's  Open  Letters  to  Professors  of 
Midwifery.  In  these  letters  we  do  not  recognize  the  gentle 
man  of  earlier  days ;  we  see  instead  an  exasperated  antagonist, 
desperate,  emotional,  fanatical,  furious.  '  My  Doctrine,'  he 
writes  to  Scanzoni,  '  is  based  on  my  experience.  Your  teach- 
ing, Herr  Hofrath,  is  based  on  the  dead  bodies  of  lying-in 
women  slaughtered  thru  ignorance;  and  I  have  formed  the 
unshakable  resolution  to  put  an  end  to  this  murderous  work 
as  far  as  lies  in  my  power.  If,  Herr  Hofrath,  without  con- 
troverting my  teachings,  or  giving  reasons  for  assuming  them 
erroneous,  you  continue  to  teach  your  students  the  doctrine 
of  epidemic  puerperal  fever,  I  denounce  you  before  God  and 
the  world  as  a  murderer,  and  the  History  of  Puerperal  Fever 
will  not  do  you  an  injustice  when,  for  the  service  of  having 
been  the  first  to  oppose  my  life-saving  Lehre,  it  perpetuates 
your  name  as  a  medical  Nero.' 

These  terrible  Open  Letters  only  amused  the  professors. 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

'  Have  you  been  scorched  by  the  puerperal  sun  ?  '  asked  one. 
*  The  Hungarian  crank  is  simply  crazy,'  said  another. 

No  longer  able  to  control  himself,  Semmelweis  stopped 
laborers  and  business-men  on  the  streets,  and  tried  to  make 
them  listen  to  his  Doctrine.  They  tapped  their  foreheads 
significantly,  and  passed  on.  It  was  not  these  people,  how- 
ever, that  caused  Fritsch's  epigram :  '  There  is  a  dark  chapter 
in  the  history  of  midwifery,  and  it  is  headed  —  Semmelweis/ 

During  a  meal,  Semmelweis  behaved  strangely,  and  when 
Marie  looked  into  his  eyes  she  saw  that  reason  had  left  him. 
She  ran  to  his  friend,  the  editor  of  Orvosi  Hetilap.  '  Non- 
sense/ said  the  good  Markusovsky,  '  nonsense,  I  assure  you. 
He  is  excited;  can  you  blame  him?  He  will  be  all  right  to- 
morrow. I  will  come  to  see  him.  There  is  no  cause  for 
worry/  But  Ludwig  Markusovsky  knew  he  lied,  for  he  him- 
self had  sickening  suspicions. 

A  few  days  later  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  conceal  the 
circumstances,  and  it  was  decided  to  remove  Semmelweis  to 
a  lunatic  asylum  in  Vienna,  where  he  would  be  under  the  care 
of  Dr  Riedel,  the  eminent  alienist.  On  the  last  day  in  July 

—  his  birth-month  —  in  1865,  when  he  was  forty-seven  years 
of  age,  the  journey  was  begun.     Some  friends  and  relatives, 
his    wife    and    infant   child,    accompanied   the    invalid.     By 
means  of  a  stratagem,  Ferdinand  Hebra  induced  him  to  enter 
the  asylum.     Fifteen  years  ago,  Semmelweis  had  left  Vienna 

—  angry ;  now  he  was  brought  back  —  mad.     Perhaps  he  had 
often  dreamed  of  returning,  but  hardly  like  this. 

Within  a  day  or  two  it  was  discovered  that  Semmelweis  had 
a  wound  in  his  finger,  the  result  of  his  last  gynecological  oper- 
ation. Gangrene  set  in,  cellulitis  developed  along  the  arm, 
metastases  followed,  and  soon  Semmelweis  lay  in  the  dead- 
house,  ready  for  a  post-mortem  examination.  Just  as  Laen- 
nec  died  of  phthisis,  the  disease  which  he  had  studied  above 
all  others,  so  Semmelweis  fell  a  victim  to  pyemia,  which  he 
had  discovered  to  be  identical  with  puerperal  fever,  and  which 
he  sought  to  exterminate  by  antisepsis. 


SEMMELWEIS,  THE  OBSTETRICIAN  278 

Thee  nor  carketh  care  nor  slander, 
Nothing  but  the  small  cold  worm 
Fretteth  thine  enshrouded  form  — 

Let  them  rave. 

Light  and  shadow  ever  wander 
O'er  the  green  that  folds  thy  grave  — 

Let  them  rave. 

r 

But  they  rave  no  more.  His  grave  had  hardly  closed  when 
Pasteur  and  Lister  began  to  make  a  microscopic  bacterium 
reveal  its  deadly  secret,  and  then  all  the  world  knew  that 
Semmelweis  had  been  right  since  1847,  and  a  magnificent 
monument  was  raised  to  his  memory.  The  great  obstetrician 
is  seen  in  full,  holding  his  book  under  his  arm;  on  the  step 
of  the  pedestal  sits  a  woman,  with  her  infant  in  her  arms, 
gazing  reverently  at  her  benefactor.  '  I  stood  to-day  with 
uncovered  head  by  the  monument  of  Semmelweis/  writes  Dr 
W.  J.  Robinson,  from  the  International  Medical  Congress  at 
Budapest;  '  it  is  very  beautiful,  and  is  kept  green  and  is  well 
taken  care  of  by  a  special  watchman.'  Ah,  if  they  had  been 
as  tender  to  the  man  as  they  are  to  his  statue,  his  career  would 
have  been  happier. 

Yet  it  is  well  that  Semmelweis  has  been  thus  honored,  and 
tho  that  marble  mausoleum  at  Budapest  may  crumble  in  the 
course  of  centuries,  there  is  one  monument  to  the  beloved 
physician  which  shall  endure  as  long  as  the  human  female 
bears  children:  Motherhood  is  safer  because  Ignaz  Semmel- 
weis lived  and  worked. 


(1804-1881)      (1810-1882) 
SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN 

With  that  grand  movement  of  the  biological  sciences  that  began  about 
1838,  and  of  which  we  to-day  contemplate  the  superb  bloom,  two  names 
are  inseparably  connected  —  Schleiden  and  Schwann. 

—  LEO  HERRERA. 

MATTHIAS  MULLER  was  a  shoemaker,  which  means  that  he 
was  poor  but  honest.  Not  everyone  in  his  neighborhood  was 
well-shod  by  any  means,  and  it  is  absurd  for  a  shoemaker  to 
be  idle  amongst  barefooted  people,  but  this  is  a  mystery  of 
political  economy  which  we  must  leave  to  the  disciples  of  Com- 
rade Marx.  Had  it  not  been  for  Napoleon's  soldiery  who 
overran  the  country  and  needed  their  boots  mended  when  they 
visited  the  farmers'  daughters,  Miiller's  wife  would  have  made 
few  visits  to  the  baker.  And  as  all  cobblers  obey  the  injunc- 
tion to  replenish  the  earth,  Matthias  Miiller  had  a  brood  to 
feed. 

Little  Johannes,  for  instance,  forgot  he  was  a  poor  man's 
child,  and  ate  with  a  royal  appetite.  Johannes  was  a  sturdy 
self-assertive  lad  who  wandered  all  over  the  town  on  his  bow- 
legs.  Sometimes  his  mother  couldn't  find  him,  and  then  she 
was  sure  he  was  drowned,  for  the  Miillers  lived  at  Coblenz 
—  where  the  river  Rhine  meets  the  waters  of  the  Moselle. 

Once  Johannes  walked  a  long  way  thru  the  vineyards  till 
he  reached  an  imposing  rock  at  which  a  group  of  people  were 
looking.  A  few  of  the  women  had  note-books  in  their  hands, 
and  one  of  the  men  was  standing  in  front  of  the  others,  point- 
ing with  a  cane  and  speaking :  '  Very  long  ago,  as  the  twilight 
came  down  from  the  hills,  a  water-nymph  would  appear  on 
this  rock,  and  she  would  sing  soft  and  low  until  darkness 
was  overcome  by  light,  and  day  drove  the  gray  mists  from  the 
valley.  So  beautiful  was  she,  as  she  sat  there  combing  her 
golden  hair  by  moon-shine,  and  so  sweetly  she  sang  her  plain- 
tive lullaby,  that  whenever  a  boatman  heard  her  voice  he  lost 

277 


278  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

his  senses,  and  swooning  with  desire  he  steered  toward  the 
maiden.  But  already  when  he  dreamed  of  possessing  her,  he 
would  strike  against  the  reefs  and  perish.  The  bold  Roland, 
the  son  of  the  Palatinate  count,  heard  of  the  enchantress,  and 
determined  to  see  her.  He  took  an  old  sailor  with  him,  and 
as  they  rowed  towards  the  cliffs, — '  here  the  guide  spoke  con- 
fidentially, and  Johannes  could  hear  nothing  more.  But  the 
Miillers  did  not  believe  in  the  Lorelei,  for  they  were  good 
Roman  Catholics  and  had  enough  legends  of  their  own. 

When  the  boy's  biceps  grew  shapely,  his  father  planned 
that  Johannes  also  should  work  with  leather,  but  not  as  a  cob- 
bler,—  as  a  harness-maker.  He  would  fashion  the  winker- 
straps  and  the  breeching,  the  check-rein  and  the  belly-band. 
But  the  mother  demurred  —  the  child  was  so  bright  —  all  the 
neighbors  said  so  —  if  they  could  only  send  him  to  the  Se- 
kunden  Schule  so  he  could  become  a  priest  —  perhaps  they 
could  manage  somehow?  Matthias  Miiller  sighed  and  shook 
his  head  mournfully  —  but  Johannes  was  sent  to  school  for 
all  that. 

'  During  the  past  several  years,'  writes  Dr  Charles  Gilmore 
Kerley,  '  the  sons  of  shoemakers,  carpenters,  plumbers,  brick- 
layers, etc.,  did  not  wish  to  follow  the  occupation  of  the 
father.  These  boys  would  be  lawyers,  bank  presidents,  phy- 
sicians, and  sorry  to  relate  some  of  them  became  lawyers  and 
physicians.' 

But  Kerley  is  an  ass  and  heredity  an  illusion:  the  sons  of 
scholars  yawned  over  their  books  and  tried  to  bribe  the  shoe- 
maker's child  to  do  their  lessons.  The  school-room  was  to  be 
Johannes  Miiller's  domain  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Deciding 
to  study  medicine  he  entered  the  University  of  Bonn,  and  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  he  secured  a  prize  for  his  researches  into 
the  respiration  of  the  fetus.  At  twenty-two  he  was  appointed 
privat-docent ;  at  twenty-five  he  was  extraordinary  professor; 
three  years  later  he  was  full  professor. 

In  1833  occurred  the  death  of  the  distinguished  Rudolphi  of 
Berlin,  and  Miiller  wrote  to  the  authorities,  '  With  the  excep- 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  279 

tion  of  Meckel  no  one  in  Germany  can  fill  this  post  as  well 
as  I.'  Evidently  this  was  the  same  Miiller  who  a  few  years 
previous,  when  wooing  a  girl,  wrote  her  a  poem  declaring  that 
as  a  marriage  settlement  he  offers  her  no  money  but  an  im- 
mortal name.  But  folks  were  not  in  the  habit  of  saying  to 
Johannes  Miiller,  '  You  are  conceited.'  Without  delay  he 
won  Anna  Zeiler  and  Rudolphi's  chair. 

For  twenty-five  years  he  remained  Professor  of  Anatomy 
and  Physiology  at  Berlin,  and  during  that  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury he  was  probably  the  most  conspicuous  man  in  the  scien- 
tific world.  Nearly  every  worker  who  added  a  stone  to  the 
structure  of  German  science  received  instruction  and  inspira- 
tion from  this  great  teacher.  No  single  discovery  of  para- 
mount importance  is  associated  with  the  name  Johannes 
Miiller,  but  the  jewels  that  he  could  exhibit  were  Virchow, 
Briicke,  Henle,  Wagener,  Helmholtz,  Bois-Reymond,  Clapa- 
rede,  Ludwig,  Schwann,  Volkmann,  Reichert,  Lachmann,. 
Vierordt,  Trochel,  Kolliker,  Remak,  Lieberkuhn,  Haeckel. 

The  spirit  that  animated  Miiller's  lecture-room  recalls  the 
days  when  Plato  stood  in  the  Academic  Grove,  and  Aristotle 
pondered  in  the  Lyceum,  and  Epicurus  philosophized  in  the 
Garden,  and  Socrates  walked  the  market-place  followed  by  his 
pupils.  Students  flocked  to  Miiller  not  merely  to  pass  ex- 
aminations and  receive  a  diploma  —  they  came  with  full 
hearts,  in  a  glowing  fervor,  like  pilgrims  to  a  shrine.  To 
work  under  Miiller  was  not  an  incident  in  one's  medical  ca- 
reer: it  was  an  epoch  never  to  be  forgotten.  So  magnetic 
was  his  personality,  a  glance  from  his  splendid  eyes  made 
such  a  lasting  impression,  that  in  an  earlier  century  Miiller 
could  easily  have  become  the  founder  of  a  religion.  As  it 
was,  many  felt  and  claimed  that  there  was  the  stamp  of  the 
supernatural  upon  him.  Emerson  wrote  an  essay  on  Char- 
acter, but  Johannes  Miiller  lived  it. 

Only  once  did  Miiller  come  in  conflict  with  his  pupils,  and 
then  the  master's  voice  fell  on  unheeding  ears.  Then  the 
youths  who  had  sat  at  his  feet  rose  up  and  deserted  him.  The 


280  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

students  who  had  been  so  proud  to  work  in  Miiller's  labora- 
tory, left  the  markings  on  the  myograph  unvarnished,  and  the 
busy  reagent  bottles  were  all  stoppered  —  till  their  necks  were 
incrusted  with  salt  and  dust.  This  was  in  1848,  when  an  out- 
raged world  revolted.  The  people  defied  the  tyranny  of 
kings,  and  the  red  flag  was  unfurled  in  the  whirlwind.  A  pike 
seemed  to  be  in  every  hand,  and  Comrade  sanctified  every  lip. 
In  what  hopes,  in  what  dreams  of  freedom  did  Young  Europe 
indulge!  Such  high  days  do  not  come  again.  The  lads  de- 
cided to  test  theories,  not  on  laboratory-desks,  but  on  the  bar- 
ricades. Miiller's  Manual  of  Physiology  was  forgotten  while 
they  read  the  Communist  Manifesto.  They  sang  aloud,  not 
college-songs,  but  revolutionary  hymns.  They  were  ready  to 
take  examinations  and  answer  the  questions,  not  in  ink,  but 
with  blood.  They  did  not  stir  weak  chemicals  in  frail  beakers, 
but  with  gunpowder  they  shook  thrones. 

But  the  shoemaker's  son  set  his  face  against  the  democratic 
passion.  Miiller  was  the  director  of  the  Berlin  Museum,  and 
in  the  clash  and  shock  he  feared  a  pathologic  specimen  of  a 
guinea-pig's  endgut  might  be  damaged.  Property  seemed 
more  sacred  to  him  than  the  liberties  of  nations.  An  official 
position  is  gag  and  gyves.  Only  he  who  is  free  from  purse 
and  responsibility  can  afford  to  tell  the  truth.  Decorated 
academicians  in  the  assembly-hall  are  never  as  honest  as  ca- 
rousing bohemians  in  the  cafe.  Respectability  has  its  penal- 
ties. 

The  matchless  vision  of  the  ideal  Republic,  which  in  those 
days  uplifted  the  souls  of  Herzen  and  Petofi  and  Mazzini 
and  Garibaldi,  was  not  discerned  by  Miiller.  One  of  the 
rebels  —  Virchow  —  has  told  how,  day  and  night,  Miiller  re- 
mained at  the  museum,  ever  on  guard ;  he  tore  down  agitating 
placards;  he  ventured  with  personal  danger  among  the  stu- 
dents, and  on  the  day  of  the  great  citizens'  parade  the  unhappy 
Professor,  with  his  own  hand,  seized  and  tore  away  the  black 
banner  which  was  stretched  across  the  balcony  of  the  uni- 
versity building. 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  281 

But  everyone  felt  that  altho  the  Director  was  mistaken,  he 
was  not  dishonorable,  and  when  the  aspirations  were  crushed, 
and  the  uprooted  thrones  rested  again  on  the  twin-pillars  of 
militarism  and  clericalism,  Miiller  got  back  his  pupils. 

No  anti-vivisectionist  would  imagine  he  could  find  comfort 
from  the  greatest  physiologist  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but 
in  a  panegyric  on  Rudolphi,  Johannes  Miiller  spoke  these 
words :  '  Rudolphi  looked  upon  physiological  experiments  as 
having  no  relation  to  anatomical  accuracy,  and  it  is  no  wonder 
that  this  admirable  man,  who  had  at  every  opportunity  ex- 
pressed his  abhorrence  of  vivisection,  took  up  a  hostile  posi- 
tion against  all  hypotheses  and  conclusions  insufficiently  es- 
tablished upon  physiological  experiments.  .  .  .  We  could 
not  have  failed  to  share  his  righteous  indignation  had  we 
seen  how  many  physiologists  were  using  every  effort  to  re- 
duce physiology  to  an  experimental  science  by  the  live  dissec- 
tion and  agonies  of  innumerable  animals,  undertaken  without 
any  definite  plan,  and  yielding  often  insignificant  results.' 

During  Miiller's  first  year  of  medical  studies  he  was  start- 
ing on  a  journey  by  horseback  to  Arrthal.  Along  the  road- 
side he  espied  a  pregnant  cat,  and  remembering  that  he  was 
investigating  the  respiration  of  the  fetus,  he  chased  the  ani- 
mal till  he  captured  it,  and  by  means  of  Caesarean  section  de- 
prived it  of  its  young.  It  is  questionable  if  the  mature  man 
would  have  repeated  the  experiment  of  the  nineteen-year  old 
student,  for  —  as  the  words  quoted  above  plainly  indicate  — 
Miiller  grew  averse  to  vivisection,  and  seldom  would  put  a 
knife  into  a  living  warm-blooded  animal. 

Because  of  Miiller's  dislike  for  the  purely  experimental  part 
of  his  science,  he  became  addicted  to  the  descriptive  portion  of 
it,  and  published  an  enormous  amount  of  strict  morphology. 
Week  after  week  and  year  after  year  he  enlarged  the  bound- 
aries of  structural  anatomy,  and  altho  Miiller  could  rule  the 
double  domain  of  anatomy  and  physiology,  no  one  else  could, 
and  at  his  death  his  biological  kingdom  —  like  Alexander's 
empire,  as  Du  Bois  Reymond  said  —  was  divided  among  his 


followers.  Miiller's  chair  was  split  into  three :  Du  Bois-Rey- 
mond  took  physiology,  Virchow  took  pathological  anatomy, 
and  Reichart  took  morphology. 

It  is  our  conviction  that  the  result  has  been  unfortunate. 
Anatomy,  divorced  from  Physiology,  is  sterile;  yet  genera- 
tions of  students  have  been  forced  to  cohabit  with  her  till  they 
echoed  a  yawning  Amen  to  Dr  Conan  Doyle's  dictum :  '  For 
him  who  has  mastered  Gray's  Anatomy,  life  has  no  further 
terrors.'  Because  of  the  stress  laid  on  morphology,  to-day 
the  entrance  to  the  temple  of  medicine  is  by  the  narrow  door 
of  memory,  and  not  thru  the  broad  gate  of  understanding. 
Not  mental  alertness,  but  an  extraordinary  amount  of  sitz- 
fteisch  is  required  to  be  able  to  remember  in  detail  the  sur- 
faces of  the  petrous  portion  of  the  temporal  bone.  Cramming 
attracts  the  grind,  but  repels  the  genius.  Emphasis  should 
not  be  laid  on  those  topics  which  are  expected  to  be  forgotten 
as  soon  as  the  quiz  is  over.  Lifeless  phraseology  and  super- 
fluous terminology  do  not  constitute  a  science.  The  present 
method  of  teaching  anatomy,  the  presentation  of  a  mass  of 
technical  description,  gross  and  histological,  which  must  be 
learned  by  rote,  is  not  calculated  to  stimulate  the  contents  of 
the  cranium.  The  long,  dry,  useless  course  in  osteology 
should  be  abolished,  structure  should  not  be  taught  without 
reference  to  function,  and  the  chairs  of  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology should  again  be  united  under  a  single  sceptre. 

The  development  of  embryology  in  the  eighteenth  century 
was  retarded  by  the  preformation  theory  which  held  that  on 
the  last  day  of  God's  labor  he  created  two  hundred  thousand 
millions  of  human  beings  in  embryo  and  neatly  packed  them 
in  the  ovaries  of  Eve,  from  which  they  were  unfolded  genera- 
tion after  generation. 

In  1759  a  young  man,  working  for  his  degree,  attacked  this 
notion  and  advanced  the  doctrine  of  epigenesis.  But  Haller, 
the  foremost  professor  of  the  age,  was  a  preformationist,  and 
between  this  potentate  of  physiology  and  the  unknown  Kaspar 
Wolff  there  could  be  no  argument.  Haller  simply  laughed, 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  283 

and  no  one  read  the  young  doctor's  thesis.  When  Meckel 
translated  it  in  1812  he  had  to  wipe  from  its  covers  the  dust 
of  half  a  century.  So  effectually  was  the  light  of  Kaspar 
Wolff  quenched  by  the  Hallerian  snuffers  that  to-day  not  a 
single  portrait  of  the  founder  of  epigenesis  is  extant.  No 
man  knows  how  the  greatest  embryologist  of  the  century 
looked. 

After  Albrecht  Haller  came  Cuvier  who  was  much  more 
mischievous  in  combating  new  ideas.  During  the  many  years 
in  which  his  influence  was  supreme,  Cuvier  was  a  veritable 
barrier  obstructing  progress.  It  is  a  matter  for  regret  that 
his  early  ambition  was  frustrated  and  that  he  failed  to  re- 
ceive an  appointment  in  the  seminary,  for  he  would  have 
done  less  harm  in  theology  than  in  science.  Furthermore,  as 
a  priest  he  would  not  have  been  the  foster-father  of  Richard 
Owen  and  Louis  Agassiz  —  two  gentlemen  who  had  unusual 
faculties  for  committing  blunders  and  corresponding  propensi- 
ties for  persisting  in  them. 

Johannes  Muller,  because  he  likewise  covered  the  whole 
field  of  biology,  has  often  been  compared  with  Haller  and 
Cuvier,  but  he  was  the  noblest  of  the  three :  he  permitted  con- 
tradiction. He  did  not  use  the  key  of  authority  to  lock  out 
a  young  discovery.  Muller  lived  to  see  much  of  his  work  re- 
modeled by  his  pupils,  but  it  is  his  eternal  glory  that  he  never 
attempted  to  hinder  the  advance  of  truth. 

Who  loves  not  Knowledge?    Who  shall  rail 
Against  her  beauty?     May  she  mix 
With  men  and  prosper!    Who  shall  fix 

Her  pillars?    Let  her  work  prevail. 

Among  Johannes  Miiller's  favorite  pupils  was  Theodor 
Schwann.  Schwann's  parents  knew  nothing  of  the  limita- 
tion of  offspring,  and  had  a  dozen  more  children  besides  him- 
self. His  early  education  was  received  at  the  Jesuit  Gym- 
nasium of  Cologne.  It  is  curious  that  men  should  be  so 
touchy  about  their  theology  if  they  chose  one  form  of  religion 


284 

in  preference  to  another  after  reaching  years  of  maturity 
there  might  be  some  reason  for  their  standpoint,  but  nothing 
is  more  accidental  or  artificial  than  our  religious  beliefs.  Our 
creeds  are  prepared  for  us  while  we  lie  in  our  cradles.  If 
Miiller  and  Schwann  had  not  been  born  in  the  old  Catholic 
Rhineland  and  had  not  received  their  first  instruction  from 
the  Jesuits  they  certainly  would  have  felt  no  reverence  for  the 
pope's  toe.  Even  from  Russian  prisons  men  have  been 
known  to  come  forth  uninjured,  but  no  one  emerges  from  a 
Jesuit's  cell  unscarred.  Laennec  and  Pasteur  were  Catholics 
because  they  were  educated  to  be  Catholics,  and  Faraday  and 
the  chemist  Wurtz  were  Protestants  because  their  parents 
were  Protestants,  and  ancient  Livy  believed  in  Romulus  and 
Remus  because  he  had  been  thus  taught  to  believe,  and  in 
the  Philosophical  Dictionary  of  Voltaire  is  a  story  of  an  Arab 
who  besides  being  a  good  calculator,  was  a  learned  chemist 
and  an  exact  astronomer,  and  nevertheless  believed  that  Ma- 
homet put  half  of  the  moon  in  his  sleeve.  Religion  is  a  mat- 
ter of  geography.  A  man's  faith  is  mapped  out  for  him  by 
his  good  grandmother,  and  yet  he  takes  it  all  so  seriously. 

By  education  most  have  been  misled; 
So  they  believe,  because  they  were  so  bred; 
The  priest  continues  what  the  nurse  began, 
And  thus  the  child  imposes  on  the  man. 

Schwann's  relatives  expected  him  to  be  a  clergyman  like 
his  older  brother  Peter,  and  he  himself  had  inclinations  for  the 
pulpit,  but  not  being  quite  decided  as  to  what  profession  he 
would  follow,  he  enrolled  in  the  University  of  Bonn  in  the 
class  of  philosophy,  a  mixed  course  which  included  some  in- 
struction in  mathematics  and  science.  He  thus  became  a  pupil 
of  Johannes  Miiller,  who  was  experimenting  at  the  time  with 
the  spinal  nerves  of  frogs,  and  when  the  master  said,  '  Herr 
Schwann,  you  may  cut  the  anterior  root,'  the  youth's  destiny 
was  fixed.  Miiller,  the  human  lodestone,  had  attracted  this 
student  as  he  did  hundreds  of  others. 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  285 

Theodor  Schwann  made  up  his  mind  to  become  a  scientist. 
For  two  years  he  studied  medicine  at  Wiirzburg,  then  came 
to  Berlin,  where  he  again  found  Miiller,  and  became,  as  we 
have  already  said,  one  of  his  helpers.  Schwann's  thesis  for 
the  doctorate  was  an  embryological  subject,  and  of  course 
the  chick  was  the  medium  employed.  We  may  almost  say 
that  if  it  were  not  for  the  chick  there  would  be  no  science  of 
embryology  —  which  sounds  like  Huxley's  remark  that  frogs 
were  invented  for  biological  experiments.  When  the  post 
of  Assistant  in  Anatomy  fell  vacant,  Muller  offered  it  to 
Schwann.  The  duties  were  strenuous,  but  fortunately  he  did 
not  have  to  lose  time  debating  how  to  dispose  of  his  salary, 
since  his  wages  were  ten  thalers  a  month. 

He  retained  the  position  for  five  years.  He  was  patience 
personified.  He  seemed  to  relish  monotony.  While  pre- 
paring the  skeleton  of  a  giant  ray  he  would  sit  for  a  week 
and  continuously  scrape  its  fins.  But  as  one  of  his  col- 
leagues said,  '  Those  were  great  times.  Any  day  a  bit  of 
animal  tissue,  shaved  off  with  a  scalpel  or  picked  to  pieces 
with  a  pair  of  needles,  might  lead  to  important  ground-break 
ing  discoveries.'  Henle,  the  author  of  the  above  quotation, 
has  left  for  posterity  a  verbal  portrait  of  Schwann :  '  He  was 
below  the  medium  stature,  with  a  beardless  face,  an  almost 
infantile  and  always  smiling  expression,  smooth,  dark-brown 
hair,  wearing  a  fur-trimmed  dressing-gown,  living  in  a  poorly- 
lighted  room  on  the  second  floor  of  a  restaurant  which  was 
not  even  of  the  second-class.  He  would  pass  whole  days 
there  without  going  out,  with  a  few  rare  books  around  him 
and  numerous  glass  vessels,  retorts,  vials,  and  tubes,  simple 
apparatus  which  he  had  made  himself.' 

An  assistant  who  is  willing  to  keep  himself  in  the  back- 
ground is  appreciated  by  the  Faculty,  and  as  the  professors 
were  preparing  an  Encyclopedic  Dictionary  of  the  Medical 
Sciences,  the  intelligent  but  unobtrusive  Schwann  was  asked 
to  contribute  some  articles. 

But  at  this  period  an  event  of  extraordinary  importance 


286  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

was  transpiring  at  Berlin.  Johannes  Miiller  was  engaged  in 
preparing  his  Handbuch  —  the  physiological  world  was  being 
placed  between  covers  —  and  among  those  who  were  selected 
to  assist  in  the  experimental  work  required,  for  nothing  went 
into  Muller's  book  until  tested  by  himself  or  associates,  was 
Theodor  Schwann. 

Dr  Schwann  now  learnt  the  joys  of  research:  that  peculiar 
excitement  a  man  feels  when  he  knows  something  that  is  not 
in  any  text-book.  Schwann  was  in  his  twenties,  but  was  far 
more  interested  in  frogs,  fibers  and  sheaths,  than  in  wine, 
woman  and  song.  He  was  busy  proving  the  restorableness 
of  cut  nerves,  inventing  the  muscular  balance,  discovering 
the  sheath  that  bears  his  name,  examining  the  textures  of 
voluntary  muscles,  pointing  out  methods  of  isolating  primary 
fibres,  demonstrating  the  origin  of  the  transverse  striae  of 
their  primitive  bundles,  showing  the  muscular  contractility  of 
arteries,  convincing  himself  that  yeast  was  an  organic  growth, 
experimenting  in  digestion  which  led  to  his  discovery  of  pep- 
sin. 

When  the  great  Handbuch  der  Physiologic  des  Menschen 
finally  appeared,  Schwann  was  gratified  to  find  several  refer- 
ences to  himself :  '  In  the  crural  vein  of  the  ox,  Schwann 
found.  ...  I  have  frequently  observed  this  phenomenon 
as  Schwann  has  described  it.  ...  Lastly,  Schwann  has 
recently  ascertained  by  means  of  the  microscope.  .  .  . 
Schwann  has  proposed  another  explanation.  ...  It  has 
been  shown  by  Schwann  to  consist.  .  .  .  This  notion  is 
disproved  by  the  fact  that  Schwann.  .  .  .  Some  very  ac- 
curate experiments  instituted  by  Schwann.  .  .  .  Accord- 
ing to  the  observation  of  Schwann.  .  .  .  Schwann  in- 
clines to  the  opinion.  .  .  .  My  assistant,  Dr  Schwann 
.  .  .  Thus  demonstrated  by  Schwann.  .  .  .  Most 
of  what  we  know  about  this  subject  we  owe  to  Schwann 
.  .  .  The  recent  important  discoveries  of  Schwann. 
.  .  .  The  proportion  of  acid  recommended  by 
Schwann.  Now  Schwann  has  shown.  It 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  287 

results  from  Schwann's  investigation.  .  .  .  Schwann's 
discoveries  are  to  be  ranked  among  the  most  important  steps 
by  which  the  science  of  physiology  has  ever  been  advanced.' 

According  to  Schwann !  A  pleasing  phrase  which  told  him 
that  he  had  achieved  scientific  fame :  for  was  he  not  immortal- 
ized in  a  German  text-book? 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Schwann  announced  that  infusoria 
do  not  originate  by  spontaneous  generation.  He  was  one  of 
those  who  uprooted  the  belief  in  generatio  equivoca  till  it  fell 
like  phlogiston  and  the  vitalistic  theory  into  those  retired 
fields  that  are  traversed  only  by  the  historical  student  of 
science. 

The  Greeks  admitted  that  every  primatic  mammal  had  a 
father  and  a  mother,  but  they  thought  the  lower  animals  could 
arise  de  novo.  Anaximander  believed  that  the  stimulating 
influence  of  moisture  brought  animals  into  existence,  and 
Aristotle  himself  wrote  that  '  sometimes  animals  are  formed 
in  putrefying  soil,  sometimes  in  plants,  and  sometimes  in  the 
fluids  of  other  animals.' 

The  Romans  were  no  wiser,  and  in  a  striking  passage  of 
the  Georgics  Virgil  describes  the  abiogenesis  of  bees,  while 
the  same  thought  is  expressed  in  a  couplet  by  Ovid : 

Hide  in  a  hollow  pit  a  slaughtered  steer,  ; 

Bees  from  his  putrid  bowels  will  appear. 

Of  course  during  the  thousand  years  of  insanity  known  as 
the  Middle  Ages  such  notions  were  universally  accepted,  and 
even  Van  Helmont  published  directions  for  the  artificial  pro- 
duction of  mice.  Such  is  the  tenacity  of  error,  that  when  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  said  he  doubted  if  mice  could  really  come 
from  a  soiled  shirt,  or  be  bred  by  putrefaction,  Alexander  Ross 
angrily  exclaimed,  '  To  question  this  is  to  question  reason, 
sense  and  experience.  If  he  doubts  of  this  let  him  go  to 
Egypt,  and  there  he  will  find  the  fields  swarming  with  mice, 
begot  of  the  mud  of  the  Nylus,  to  the  great  calamity  of  the 
inhabitants.' 


288 

The  first  man  who  shed  light  on  the  problem  of  equivocal 
generation  was  the  seventeenth  century  physician-poet,  Fran- 
cesco Redi,  who  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  maggots 
found  in  decaying  meat  were  not  produced  spontaneously  by 
the  meat,  but  had  been  deposited  there  by  flies.  His  proof 
consisted  in  covering  meat  with  a  fine  gauze,  thru  which  the 
putrescent  odor  escaped :  the  flies  buzzed  around  it,  but  as  the 
meshes  were  too  small  to  permit  their  eggs  to  fall  thru,  no 
maggots  were  generated  in  the  meat,  but  were  hatched  on  the 
gauze. 

A  few  years  later  a  new  door  was  opened  in  biology  when 
the  glorious  Dutchman  Leeuwenhoek  looked  thru  a  microscope 
and  discovered  bacteria.  Thereafter,  as  far  as  most  scien- 
tists were  concerned,  the  debate  about  the  origin  of  life  re- 
solved itself  down  to  this  point :  Can  the  lowest  forms  of  life 
be  produced  abiogenetically?  Even  to-day  can  be  found 
country-people  who  believe  in  showers  of  frogs,  and  that 
horse-hairs  kept  in  water  turn  into  eels. 

A  liquid  was  heated  to  the  boiling-point  to  destroy  all  liv- 
ing organisms,  and  the  tube  was  sealed  to  prevent  contamina- 
tion from  the  outside  air.  As  a  rule  these  solutions  remained 
sterile,  but  sometimes  microorganisms  were  found  in  them. 
'  This  proves,'  claimed  the  abiogenists,  '  the  occurrence  of 
spontaneous  generation.'  '  No,'  said  the  biogenists,  '  it 
proves  only  the  imperfect  sterilization  of  the  fluid,  or  im- 
proper exclusion  of  germ-laden  dust.' 

All  along  the  line  the  victory  had  been  in  favor  of  the  doc- 
trine that  living  things  are  produced  only  from  antecedent  liv- 
ing things.  But  when  oxygen  was  discovered,  and  it  was 
shown  that  this  gas  is  essential  to  all  forms  of  life,  the  ques- 
tion was  asked:  Was  not  Spallanzani's  failure  to  find  life  in 
his  infusions  due  to  the  fact  that  he  heated  his  tightly-closed 
flasks  till  the  oxygen  lost  its  vital  property? 

It  therefore  became  necessary  to  test  the  problem  from  the 
oxygen  standpoint.  In  1836  and  1837  Franz  Schulze  and 
Theodor  Schwann  devised  experiments  by  which  the  air  of  the 


SCHLEIDEN 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  289 

atmosphere  that  entered  the  flasks  was  compelled  to  pass 
either  thru  strong  sulphuric  acid  or  thru  highly  heated  tubes. 
The  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere  was  not  injured,  but  the  germs 
were,  and  no  life  appeared  in  the  cultures.  Again  the  result 
was  wholly  in  favor  of  biogenesis. 

In  1854  a  further  blow  was  given  to  the  doctrine  of  spon- 
taneous generation  by  the  discovery  of  Schroeder  and  van 
Dusch  that  '  if  the  mouth  of  the  flask  containing  putrescible 
fluid  was  protected  by  a  plug  of  cotton-wool  thru  which  an 
abundance  of  air  could  freely  enter  and  exit,  but  by  which 
it  would  be  filtered,  no  life  appeared  in  the  contents/ 

In  1859,  however,  the  entire  question  was  again  befogged 
and  unsettled  by  Pouchet's  emotional  book.  But  then  followed 
the  classic  experiments  of  Pasteur  and  Tyndall,  and  the  theory 
of  spontaneous  generation  was  relegated  to  the  ample  museum 
of  abandoned  beliefs.  This  was  one  of  Pasteur's  greatest 
triumphs,  and  when  the  plaudits  of  the  scientific  world  were 
ringing  in  his  ears,  he  remembered  that  Schwann's  experi- 
ments on  fermentation  had  been  of  value  to  him  and  he  sent 
the  German  a  letter  of  gratitude. 

But  altho  Pasteur  proved  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt 
that  when  the  infusion  is  sufficiently  boiled  and  the  air  chem- 
ically purified  no  organism  makes  its  appearance,  it  must  be 
emphasized  —  as  it  is  often  forgotten  —  that  his  demonstra- 
tion has  not  in  any  manner  affected  the  question  of  the  origin 
of  organic  matter.  Pasteur  showed  that  under  certain  arti- 
ficial conditions  life  is  not  produced,  but  does  this  shed  any 
light  on  the  genesis  of  the  earliest  organism? 

We  watch  an  ameba  and  we  say  that  this  is  the  simplest 
form  of  life,  but  how  did  the  first  ameba  arise?  We  no  longer 
believe  in  gaps  and  leaps ;  in  the  long  chain  of  nature  there  is 
no  missing  link.  It  is  less  than  a  century  since  the  first  or- 
ganic compound  was  prepared  artificially  on  a  laboratory- 
desk.  Schwann's  work  on  muscular  force  and  Du  Bois  Rey- 
mond's  and  Helmholtz's  elaborate  experimentation  with  ani- 
mal electricity  further  helped  to  demolish  the  vitalistic  hy- 


290  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

pothesis,  and  we  are  continually  adding  planks  that  will 
eventually  bridge  the  gulf  between  the  organic  and  the  inor- 
ganic. Daily  the  chasm  that  separates  the  living  from  the 
dead  is  growing  narrower  —  we  are  filling  it  in  with  facts 
which  tend  to  prove  that  organic  matter  evolved  from  inor- 
ganic. 

When  Butler  Burke  enclosed  sterilized  beef  tea  in  a  tube 
and  allowed  the  emanations  of  radium  salts  to  attack  it,  in  a 
few  hours,  within  the  closed  tube,  specks  appeared  and  grew 
and  subdivided  as  if  they  were  bacilli.  Yet  these  specks  were 
not  living  things ;  they  were  inorganic  particles,  but  the  radium 
had  quickened  the  dead  matter  till  it  acted  like  the  lowest  or- 
ganisms do.  Perhaps  it  is  time  to  change  a  few  of  our  defini- 
tions. 

Much  as  Darwinism  has  explained,  it  made  no  attempt  to 
solve  the  problem  of  the  first  appearance  of  life  on  earth.  But 
certainly  we  are  not  to  assume  a  special  creative  act  for  the 
first  organism :  we  must  apply  the  doctrine  of  evolution  here 
as  everywhere.  A  complex  organism  developed  from  the 
cell,  and  the  first  cell  developed  from  a  substance  simpler  than 
a  cell,  the  non-nucleated  particles  of  plasm  called  the  monera. 
And  this  first  gelatinous  mass,  the  simplest  of  all  living  mat- 
ter —  where  did  that  come  from  ?  Ah,  here  is  the  essence  of 
the  question  of  the  origin  of  life,  but  we  shall  not  shirk  it. 
We  who  are  young,  let  us  be  as  brave  as  the  old  Haeckel :  the 
monera,  as  the  lowest  form  of  organic  life,  must  have  evolved 
from  inorganic  carbon-compounds,  and  thus  in  the  broad 
sense  we  must  believe  in  life  which  originated  without  ante- 
cedent life,  and  accept  the  hypothesis  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion. 

Yet  we  confess  it  is  with  an  uncertain  voice  that  we  utter 
these  words.  The  trouble  is  that  we  cannot  write  the  chem- 
ical formula  of  a  protein.  The  white  of  egg  consists  of  car- 
bon, hydrogen,  nitrogen,  oxygen  and  sulphur.  If  we  could 
only  take  these  five  elements  and  mix  them  in  our  beakers  or 
heat  them  in  our  crucibles  or  freeze  them  in  our  ammonia 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  291 

tanks  till  they  albuminized,  man  would  become  the  possessor 
of  the  secret  of  secrets.  This  is  the  crux  of  all  biologic  prob- 
lems :  to  create  a  bit  of  protoplasm.  A  chemist  can  make  but- 
ter :  when  the  biologist  learns  to  lay  an  egg  he  will  have  solved 
the  problem  of  life. 

One  of  the  last  topics  which  Miiller  discusses  in  his  Physi- 
ology is  Schwann's  cellular  theory.  But  here  it  is  necessary 
to  introduce  another  personage  —  Schwann's  friend,  Matthias 
Jacob  Schleiden. 

Love  between  the  sexes  is  considered  the  most  interesting 
phenomenon  that  occurs  on  this  planet,  but  in  reality  the 
matter  is  so  simple  that  we  can  produce  love  by  experimenta- 
tion :  Put  a  man  and  a  woman  on  a  moonlit  beach  together, 
and  after  they  have  listened  to  sad  sea  waves  for  an  hour  they 
will  be  in  love.  Love  is  a  matter  of  opportunity.  Think  how 
often  the  boarder  who  is  received  into  the  homes  of  the  poor 
to  help  pay  the  rent,  causes  domestic  difficulties.  Many  a 
love-affair  has  been  nipped  in  the  bud  because  one  of  the 
parties  moved  half  a  mile  away.  The  physical  instinct,  which 
is  usually  the  basis  and  the  reason  for  sex  love,  seems  to 
flourish  only  when  nourished  by  propinquity.  Not  absence, 
but  calling  on  her  five  nights  a  week,  makes  the  heart  grow 
fonder. 

Altho  supposed  to  be  much  tamer,  friendship  is  more  com- 
plex than  love,  and  it  is  easier  to  understand  love-matches  than 
some  friendships.  Why  did  a  pretty  servant-girl  attract  the 
great  Goethe?  The  answer  is  obvious  enough, —  because  she 
was  pretty  —  but  who  shall  explain  how  it  was  possible  for 
the  large  free-hearted  Swinburne  to  have  lived  for  years  under 
the  same  roof  with  the  priggish  Mr  Watt's-Dunton? 

Certainly  there  was  nothing  mutual  in  the  temperaments  of 
Schleiden  and  Schwann.  Schwann  was  colorless  and  char- 
acterless, but  Schleiden  had  personality  plus.  Schwann  was 
a  pigeon,  Schleiden  a  storm-petrel.  No  provocation  could 
lure  Schwann  into  a  controversy,  while  Schleiden  counted  that 
day  lost  in  which  he  had  not  argued.  Schwann  was  pious, 


PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

while  Schleiden  openly  proclaimed  his  disbelief  in  religion. 
Schwann  was  gentle  and  passive,  a  negative  man;  bold  and 
fiery  was  Schleiden,  a  positive  force. 

On  reaching  the  age  of  twenty,  Schleiden  saw  it  was  time 
for  him  to  do  something,  and  he  entered  the  university  of 
Heidelberg  to  study  jurisprudence.  He  graduated,  and  was 
willing  to  practice  law,  but  altho  the  courts  were  full  of  plain- 
tiffs and  defendants,  and  Hans  did  trespass  ab  initio  on  the 
property  of  Fritz,  and  A  forgot  the  contract  that  he  made 
with  B,  and  there  was  litigation  between  grantor  and  grantee, 
and  the  appellants  swore  to  sue  the  appellees,  and  man  loved 
not  his  neighbor,  but  loved  his  neighbor's  wife,  and  busy  at- 
torneys spoke  much  of  prima  facie  and  of  ex  debito  justitia 
and  damnum  absque  injuria, —  yet  no  clients  came  with  cash 
to  Counselor  Schleiden.  The  business  did  not  pay,  Schleiden 
struggled  for  a  time,  then  grew  discouraged,  and  as  he  did 
not  possess  the  judicial  mind  —  never  having  been  elevated  to 
the  bench  —  he  attempted  suicide.  The  action  was  both  il- 
legal and  unsuccessful. 

Schleiden  then  told  his  father  that  he  had  decided  to  study 
science,  and  his  father,  who  was  a  physicist,  encouraged  him. 
So  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven  Schleiden  arrived  at  Got- 
tingen  to  begin  a  new  career.  This  was  in  1831,  a  few  years 
before  the  famous  seven  professors  were  expelled,  and  the 
university  was  in  a  healthy  condition.  From  Gottingen 
Schleiden  came  to  Berlin  where  he  plunged  into  botanical 
studies  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  passionate  nature.  '  With 
his  interest  in  botany,'  says  Wilhelm  Bolsche,  '  a  new  life  be- 
gan, and  he  worked  with  the  energy  of  one  raised  from  the 
dead/ 

One  day  Schleiden  and  Schwann  were  dining  together,  dis- 
cussing their  researches.  '  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion,'  re- 
marked Schleiden,  '  that  the  nucleus  plays  the  chief  part  in 
the  development  of  vegetable  cells.' 

Someone  entered  the  restaurant,  and  the  friends  looked  up 
for  a  moment.  Not  far  from  them  three  young  men  were 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  293 

standing  in  front  of  mugs  filled  brimful  with  beer.  At  a 
given  signal  they  raised  the  steins  from  the  table,  and  drank 
with  astonishing  speed;  the  youngest  finished  first,  brought 
his  empty  jug  back  on  the  table  with  a  triumphant  bang,  and 
received  the  congratulations  due  to  a  champion. 

'  Manifestly,'  resumed  Schleiden,  *  the  discovery  of  the 
nucleus  was  a  great  piece  of  work  —  it  will  yield  tremendous 
results.  To  the  health  of  Robert  Brown!  Really,  I  think 
I  can  trace  back  every  plant  embryo  to  a  single  nucleated  cell.' 

'  What  you  say,'  said  Schwann,  '  reminds  me  that  I  have 
seen  a  similar  organ  in  the  cells  of  the  dorsal  cord  upon  which 
Professor  Miiller  has  put  me  to  work.  Besides,  in  the  verte- 
brate notochord  Miiller  has  pointed  out  the  existence  of  cells 
resembling  those  of  the  plant.' 

'  Let  me  see  these  cells,'  said  Schleiden.  They  hastened 
to  the  laboratory,  and  looking  thru  the  microscope  the  eager 
eye  of  Schleiden  saw  that  the  nuclei  of  the  chorda  dorsalis 
were  similar  to  the  nuclei  of  vegetable  tissue.  '  Identical,'  ex- 
claimed Schleiden. 

'  Then,'  mused  Schwann,  '  it  must  follow  in  consequence  of 
this  identity  that  your  conception  must  be  extended  also  to  the 
animal  world.  This  means  that  the  cell  is  the  unit  of  all  or- 
ganic structure.' 

In  this  manner  did  modern  biology  begin.  What  the  mole- 
cule is  to  the  chemist,  the  cell  is  to  the  biologist.  Schleiden, 
the  real  father  of  the  cell  doctrine,  wrote  a  short  paper  on  the 
subject  —  Ueber  Phylogenesis  —  sent  it  to  Miiller 's  Archiv, 
and  then  wandered  off  into  other  fields. 

Schwann,  with  his  characteristic  patience,  sat  down  and 
began  to  test  nails,  feathers,  enamels,  and  all  organic  tissues 
he  could  think  of,  found  them  all  to  be  of  cellular  origin,  and 
then  wrote  his  elaborate  treatise,  Microscopical  Researches 
into  the  Accordance  in  the  Structure  and  Growth  of  Plants 
and  Animals.  It  was  a  work  that  '  set  the  crown  of  immor- 
tality upon  an  unwrinkled  forehead.'  Here  for  the  first  time 
we  find  the  now  familiar  term,  cell  theory :  '  The  development 


294  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

of  the  proposition  that  there  exists  one  general  principle  for 
the  formation  of  all  organic  productions,  and  that  this  prin- 
ciple is  the  formation  of  cells,  as  well  as  the  conclusions  which 
may  be  drawn  from  this  proposition,  may  be  comprised  under 
the  term  cell  theory.' 

There  had  been  vague  foreshadowings  of  this  theory  in 
former  centuries  —  everything  intellectual  germinated  in  the 
infinite  brain  of  Aristotle.  From  the  Greek  we  must  skip  to 
the  Englishmen  Hooke  and  Grew  who  drew  cells,  and  to 
Malpighi  and  Leeuwenhoek  who  sketched  the  microscopic 
structure  of  plants  —  tho  neither  of  these  naturalists  had  any 
idea  of  the  importance  or  the  universality  of  the  cell.  Kaspar 
Wolff  came  much  nearer  to  the  truth,  while  Lorenz  Oken  was 
hot  on  the  trail  when  he  wrote  that  '  animals  and  plants  are 
thruout  nothing  else  than  manifoldly  divided  or  repeated 
vesicles,  as  I  shall  prove  anatomically  at  the  proper  time/  but 
the  proper  time  never  came  for  him,  for  the  brilliant  transcen- 
dentalist,  tho  the  most  lucky  of  guessers  and  a  dreamer  of  the 
highest  rank,  seldom  cared  to  furnish  proof  for  his  state- 
ments. 

In  truth  Schleiden  and  Schwann  received  scant  aid  from 
their  forerunners,  and  subsequent  investigators  have  had  oc- 
casion to  modify  considerable  of  the  founder's  work.  For 
instance,  Schleiden  thought  he  had  seen  cells  arise  de  novo, 
and  not  only  by  the  division  of  pre-existing  cells,  and  strangely 
enough,  Schwann  who  had  done  effective  work  against  spon- 
taneous generation,  followed  him  in  his  misconception.  It 
remained  for  Virchow  to  announce  omnis  cellula  e  cellula. 

Some  of  Schleiden's  and  Schwann's  mistakes  were  inher- 
ited from  the  seventeenth  century.  Thus,  in  1665,  Robert 
Hooke,  whom  we  have  mentioned  above,  cut  a  thin  section 
of  cork  with  his  penknife,  looked  at  it  thru  his  microscope,  and 
described  what  he  saw  as  made  up  of  '  little  boxes  or  cells  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other,'  for  in  cork  the  cell-wall  is  the 
most  prominent  element.  After  the  publication  of  his  Micro- 
graphia,  showing  the  earliest  known  pictures  of  cells,  it  was 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  295 

believed  that  the  cell  wall  was  more  important  than  the  cell 
contents.  We  now  know  that  the  cell  wall  or  limiting  mem- 
brane, tho  conspicuous  in  vegetable  tissue,  is  non-essential, 
and  is  present  in  but  few  animal  cells. 

It  is  true  that  within  the  cell  wall  Schleiden  had  seen  a 
substance  which  he  simply  called  gum  and  forgot.  But  a 
host  of  workers  —  Dujardin,  Purkinje,  von  Mohl,  Nageli, 
Ferdinand  Cohn,  DeBary,  Virchow  —  kept  their  eyes  screwed 
on  Schleiden's  gum  till  they  pronounced  it  the  essential 
substance  of  all  living  cells.  Then  came  one  whose  vision 
saw  the  correlation  of  this  vast  biologic  leaven,  and  Max 
Schultze  joined  the  cell  doctrine  and  the  protoplasm  doctrine 
into  one  harmonious  whole,  and  each  fact  fell  into  its  place 
like  the  elements  in  Mendeleyeff's  Periodic  System.  A  few 
years  later,  on  a  Sabbath  evening,  Huxley  proclaimed  to  a 
popular  audience  that  life  has  a  physical  basis,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  lecture  on  protoplasm. 

So  we  see  how  far  others  advanced  beyond  Schleiden  and 
Schwann,  but  the  glory  of  pioneer  work  is  theirs. 

The  time  must  have  been  ripe  for  the  cell-theory,  for  in- 
stead of  the  calumny  which  is  the  usual  lot  of  the  innovator, 
both  Schleiden  and  Schwann  reaped  rewards. 

The  great  Catholic  University  of  Louvain  —  which  had 
been  swept  away  by  the  French  Revolution,  and  had  just  been 
re-established  —  needed  a  professor  of  anatomy,  and  Theodor 
Schwann,  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  was  asked  to  fill  the  chair. 

Jena  likewise  needed  another  member  on  its  teaching  staff, 
an  adjunct  professor  of  botany,  and  the  position  —  it  is  be- 
lieved on  Humboldt's  recommendation  —  was  offered  to 
Matthias  Jacob  Schleiden. 

For  ten  years  Schwann  taught  at  Louvain,  and  for  more 
than  thrice  ten  he  was  professor  at  Liege.  Breslau  asked  for 
him  in  1852,  Wiirzburg  and  Munich  wanted  him  in  1854, 
and  the  following  year  he  was  invited  by  Giessen.  But  his 
Fatherland  never  got  him  back.  For  the  rest  of  his  days 
Schwann  lectured  in  a  strange  tongue.  The  Catholic  atmos- 


296  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

phere  of  Belgium  suited  him  better  than  the  rationalistic  spirit 
which  was  invading  the  German  universities.  He  came  to 
Germany  only  during  the  Christmas  vacations  to  visit  his  par- 
ents and  brothers  and  sisters  in  the  neighborhood  of  Cologne, 
for  evidently  Schwann  did  not  accept  Coleridge's  estimate  of 
his  birthplace: 

In  Koln,  a  town  of  monks  and  bones, 

And  pavements   fang*d  with  murderous  stones-, 

And  rags  and  hags  and  hideous  wenches — 

I  counted  two-and-seventy  stenches, 

All  well-defined  and  several  stinks! 

Ye  nymphs  that  reign  o'er  sewers  and  sinks ! 

The  river  Rhine,  it  is  well-known, 

Doth  wash  your  city  of  Cologne; 

But  tell  me,  nymphs!  what  power  divine 

Shall  henceforth  wash  the  river  Rhine? 

Schwann  arrived  in  Belgium,  young  and  famous.  Over 
forty  years  of  work  yet  remained  to  him.  These  forty  years 
were  the  Golden  Age  of  Science  in  which  the  entire  scientific 
world  was  recast  —  vastly  improved.  A  thousand  hypotheses 
were  overthrown,  musty  theories  were  hauled  into  the  light 
of  day  and  re-examined,  discovery  crowded  thick  upon  dis- 
covery, the  world  was  flooded  with  fact,  and  Truth  rose  glo- 
rious as  never  before.  Biology  entered  every  home, — 
and  environment,  adaptation,  atavism,  hereditary  transmis- 
sion, struggle  for  existence,  and  survival  of  the  fittest,  ceased 
to  be  technical  terms  and  became  colloquisms. 

What  did  Schwann  accomplish  during  all  these  fruitful 
years?  Well,  he  published  a  monograph  on  bile,  but  nothing 
else.  He  went  to  an  honored  grave  in  his  seventies,  but  over 
his  coffin  waved  the  laurels  he  had  earned  in  his  twenties. 
Age  added  not  a  single  leaf  to  the  crown  of  immortality  which 
he  won  in  his  youth.  Schwann  was  not  an  original  thinker; 
he  could  work  only  when  he  received  the  stimulus  from  a 
strong  man  like  Miiller  or  Schleiden.  It  is  a  pity  that  he 
feared  the  atheism  of  the  German  students.  Had  he  ac- 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  297 

cepted  the  call  to  Wiirzburg,  for  instance,  Schwann  could  not 
have  witnessed  von  Kolliker  making  a  new  discovery  in  his- 
tology every  year  without  being  inspired  to  emulate  him. 
However,  there  is  nothing  peculiar  about  Schwann's  case: 
many  a  young  man  has  done  brilliant  work  while  occupying 
an  obscure  post;  then  they  make  him  a  Hofrat  or  a  Geheim- 
rat,  and  he  does  nothing  —  except  discover  that  it  is  easier  to 
repeat  last  year's  lectures  than  prepare  new  ones. 

But  peace  is  the  great  narcotic  that  is  apt  to  lure  us  all  into 
a  life  of  nothingness.  And  yet  Schwann's  long  uneventful 
existence  in  Belgium  was  disturbed  at  least  once: 

Louise  Lateau,  the  pious  daughter  of  a  Belgian  miner,  was 
so  very  ill  that  she  received  the  last  sacrament.  But  she  did 
not  die ;  she  fell  into  an  extasy  —  from  which  only  Bishop 
Dumont  of  Tournay  could  awaken  her — and  her  body  be- 
came marked  with  the  print  of  her  Savior's  bruises.  Often 
for  hours  she  had  contemplated  the  crucifixion,  and  now  on 
her  own  body  appeared  the  injuries  that  had  been  inflicted 
upon  Christ.  Where  the  crown  of  thorns  had  been  set,  where 
the  nails  had  been  hammered,  and  where  the  Roman  soldier 
had  thrust  in  a  spear,  Louise  Lateau  was  sorely  wounded. 
This  case  of  stigmatization  excited  considerable  interest,  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  investigate  whether  her  wounds 
were  due  to  natural  or  supernatural  causes,  and  Theodor 
Schwann  was  asked  to  be  a  member. 

To  one  not  connected  with  the  Catholic  Church  the  case  had 
no  special  significance  and  offered  no  insuperable  difficul- 
ties. All  that  was  necessary  was  to  observe  the  girl,  question 
her,  study  her  condition,  and  write  a  report.  But  stigmatiza- 
tion is  one  of  the  accepted  miracles  of  Catholicism,  and  for  a 
son  of  the  Mother  Church  to  disbelieve  in  it  was  like  denying 
the  efficacy  of  transubstantiation  or  the  possibility  of  the 
resurrection.  It  was  all  very  well  for  some  German  material- 
ist to  say  that  stigmatic  neuropathy  was  a  pathological  condi- 
tion of  occasional  occurrence,  explainable  by  physical  and 
mental  conditions.  It  was  easy  enough  for  others  to  point 


298  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

out  the  analogy  between  vicarious  menstruation  and  hemor- 
rhagic  exudation,  and  to  talk  about  hystero-epileptic  conditions 
and  the  effects  of  automatic  attention  upon  the  body;  it  was 
natural  for  a  scoffer  to  say  that  many  cases  of  stigmatization 
had  been  found  to  be  fraudulent,  and  that  Theresa  Stadele, 
Rosa  Tamisier,  Angela  Hupe,  Sabina  Schafer  and  others  had 
been  imprisoned  for  their  impositions;  and  who  could  help  it 
if  an  infidel  claimed  that  the  crown  of  thorns  on  Rita  of  Cas- 
cia's  forehead  was  simply  a  circle  of  pimples  due  to  smallpox? 
It  was  not  difficult  for  the  cynical  Dr  H.  Bcens  to  spy  upon 
this  Louise  Lateau  and  to  announce  that  she  frequently  rubs 
and  scratches  with  her  nails  and  with  a  rough  cloth,  especially 
during  the  night,  the  places  where  the  blood  flows,  and  that 
she  keeps  up  on  these  spots,  even  mechanically  during  sleep, 
pressure  with  her  fingers,  so  as  to  maintain  a  condition  of 
local  congestion  —  he  was  no  better  than  Professor  Bodde 
who  had  examined  Anna  Emmerich's  wound-prints,  and  pro- 
nounced the  blood-marks  due  to  sanguis  draconis.  But  had 
not  popes  anathematized  those  who  failed  to  believe  that  stig- 
matization was  an  evidence  of  God's  favor  towards  his  saints? 

The  Church  indicated  nearly  a  hundred  instances  in  which 
miraculous  stigmatization  had  occurred.  This  divine  chas- 
tisement was  first  inflicted  in  1224  upon  St  Francis  of  Assisi, 
who  had  retired  to  a  hermit's  hut  at  Mt  Alverna  in  the  Apen- 
nines. In  a  vision  the  saint  saw  a  seraph  whose  face  burned 
with  fire  and  radiated  light  in  every  direction,  and  between 
whose  wings  appeared  an  image  of  the  Crucified  One.  When 
Francis  awoke  he  was  stigmatized  in  imitation  of  Christ,  and 
St  Clara  could  not  pull  out  the  nails. 

Because  of  this  event  the  Franciscans  soon  overshadowed 
the  older  order  of  St  Dominic,  but  in  the  next  century  God 
saved  the  reputation  of  the  Dominicans,  for  a  bloody  sweat 
bathed  St  Catherine  of  Siena,  the  Dominican  sister,  then  the 
coronation  with  thorns  appeared,  and  finally  the  lance- 
wounds. 

Since  that  time  stigmatization  occurred  more  frequently  — 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  299 

God  having  become  accustomed  to  the  work  —  and  the  Church 
pointed  to  St  Leo  whose  body  at  birth  was  marked  all  over 
with  red  crosses  due  to  the  intense  meditation  of  his  mother 
on  the  passion  of  Christ,  and  a  sign  that  the  child  himself 
would  carry  the  cross  to  his  life's  end.  There  was  Maria  von 
Mori  whose  stigmata  in  the  hands,  feet  and  side  were  wit* 
nessed  by  over  40,000  persons.  St  Gertrude  of  Ostend  dur- 
ing Holy  Week  felt  five  punctures,  two  in  the  hands,  two  in 
the  feet,  and  one  in  the  side;  from  these  stigmata  blood 
flowed  seven  times  a  day  at  the  seven  canonical  hours,  but 
when  the  crowds  came  to  see  the  miracle,  Gertrude  feared  she 
might  grow  vain,  and  prayed  that  the  flux  of  blood  might 
cease,  and  altho  her  desire  was  granted,  the  marks  of  the 
Passion  remained  till  death.  St  Catherine  of  Ricci  was 
known  as  the  virgin  bride  of  Christ,  for  the  savior  himself 
placed  upon  her  finger  an  engagement  ring,  and  marked  her 
body  with  the  sacred  stigmata,  since  which  time,  during 
Passion  week,  she  experienced  all  the  torments  of  the  Re- 
deemer. A  similar  case  was  that  of  St  Lidwina :  angels  came 
to  her,  and  not  only  did  she  converse  with  them,  but  even 
called  them  by  name ;  she  was  also  granted  personal  interviews 
with  her  celestial  spouse,  who  on  one  occasion  impressed  on 
her  body  the  marks  of  his  suffering,  but  to  avoid  vanity  she 
entreated  him  to  render  these  stigmata  invisible  to  others,  a 
favor  which  was  accorded  to  her. 

And  these  cases,  which  we  have  reported  in  almost  the 
words  used  by  the  ecclesiastics,  were  but  a  few  out  of  many. 
How  then  could  a  true  Catholic  like  Schwann  deny  them? 
Had  not  the  Bulls  of  Pope  Gregory  IX  expressly  commanded 
his  subjects  to  accept  them  as  a  proof  of  divine  intervention 
in  human  affairs?  Schwann's  decision  was  a  foregone  con- 
clusion, and  hasty  clerical  papers,  without  consulting  him,  an- 
nounced that  he  regarded  Louise  Lateau's  wounds  as  mirac- 
ulous. 

But  the  statement  was  premature.  All  his  days  Schwann 
had  dwelt  in  the  shadow  of  the  house  of  truth.  While  yet 


300  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

a  child  he  had  consecrated  his  life  to  her  service;  his  prayer 
had  been  heard,  and  Science  laid  her  hand  upon  him.  In  her 
name  he  had  been  admitted  to  holy  places :  clothed  in  her  gar- 
ments he  had  clasped  the  hand  of  Johannes  Miiller,  and  for 
five  years  he  dwelt  in  the  master's  temple. 

It  was  time  for  him  to  draw  up  his  report;  before  him  lay 
the  blank  paper.  Out  of  the  ink-horn  rose  the  ghost  of  Lo- 
yola and  beckoned  to  him :  '  You  are  one  of  us  —  deny  us 
not ! '  Now  Schwann  knew  there  was  no  miracle  connected 
with  the  wounds  of  Louise  Lateau.  Schwann  wrote,  but  over 
his  pages  fell  the  spirit  of  science.  The  man  was  true  to  his 
youthful  vow. 

Upon  the  publication  of  Schwann's  report  the  clerical  press 
was  equally  astonished  and  enraged,  and  a  bucketful  of 
printer's  ink  was  poured  upon  the  amiable  old  man.  Harsh 
epithets  were  coined  in  editorial  offices,  but  Theodor  Schwann 
made  no  reply.  For  a  lesser  offense  the  aged  Galileo  had 
been  forced  to  recant  on  his  knees,  and  men  had  been  marched 
to  the  stake,  but  the  nineteenth  century  was  better  than  the 
sixteenth :  it  was  the  Age  of  Biology,  and  in  a  Catholic  insti- 
tution Schwann  retained  his  professorship.  Great  Galileo  was 
right  in  more  ways  than  one:  Eppur  si  muove! 

In  the  meanwhile  we  have  left  Professor  Schleiden  at  Jena 
—  the  most  liberal  school  in  Germany.  It  is  true  it  couldn't 
tolerate  the  metaphysical  atheism  of  the  moral  Fichte,  but 
this  was  before  Wolfgang  von  Goethe  had  time  to  make  the 
little  university  eager  for  new  ideas.  When  Schleiden  began 
to  teach  botany,  the  science  was  overrun  by  obsolete  Linnaean 
survivors  who  thought  the  only  occupation  of  the  naturalist 
was  to  clip,  collect  and  catalog. 

In  the  midst  of  their  pedantic  rules,  jauntily  upsetting  their 
archaic  laws,  Schleiden  flung  his  Principles  of  Scientific  Bot- 
any, in  which,  for  the  first  time,  botany  was  treated  accord- 
ing to  the  inductive  method.  The  work  was  dedicated  to 
Humboldt,  no  doubt  as  a  personal  tribute,  but  also  to  indi- 
cate that  the  author  considered  botany  related  to  the  other 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  301 

sciences.  The  preface  begins  gently  thus :  '  Whoever  thinks 
he  can  learn  botany  in  this  book  may  as  well  put  it  aside  at 
once  without  reading  it,  for  botany  cannot  be  learned  from 
books.'  Those  of  us  who  studied  phyllotaxy  in  Asa  Gray's 
Botanical  Text-Book,  and  recall  with  a  shudder  its  hopelessly 
monotonous  pages,  may  well  regret  that  Schleiden's  book  has 
gone  out  of  use.  We  admit  it  sometimes  digressed  and  some- 
times indulged  in  personalities,  but  that  only  made  the  calyx 
and  the  corolla  more  interesting.  Schleiden  was  certainly 
the  most  tempestuous  plant  that  grew  in  the  botanical 
garden. 

The  foremost  historian  of  botany  has  reviewed  The  Prin- 
ciples of  Scientific  Botany  in  words  too  significant  to  be 
omitted :  '  Schleiden's  book,'  writes  Julius  von  Sachs,  '  was 
the  first  of  its  kind  that  supplied  the  student  with  really  good 
figures  based  on  careful  observations.  With  all  its  many  and 
obvious  defects  it  had  one  merit  which  cannot  be  rated  too 
highly;  its  appearance  at  once  put  botany  on  the  footing  of  a 
natural  science  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  and  placed 
it  upon  a  higher  platform,  extending  its  horizon  by  raising 
its  point  of  view.  The  difference  between  this  and  all  other 
previous  text-books  is  the  difference  between  day  and  night; 
in  the  one  an  indolent  carelessness  and  an  absence  of  ideas ;  in 
the  other,  a  fulness  of  life  and  thought,  calculated  to  influ- 
ence young  minds  all  the  more,  because  it  was  in  many  re- 
spects incomplete  and  still  in  a  state  of  fermentation.  On 
every  page  of  this  remarkable  work,  by  the  side  of  facts  really 
worth  knowing,  the  student  found  interesting  reflections,  a 
lively  and  generally  coarse  polemic,  and  praise  and  blame  of 
others.  It  was  not  a  book  to  be  studied  quietly  and  com- 
fortably, but  one  that  excited  the  reader  everywhere  to  take 
a  side  for  or  against,  and  to  seek  for  further  instruction.' 

Schleiden  followed  this  work  by  another  equally  successful 
—  The  Plant  and  its  Life.  Its  object  was  to  popularize  bot- 
any and  to  show  that  the  botanist  is  no  longer  merely  a  dealer 
in  barbarous  Latin  names,  a  man  who  gathers  flowers,  names 


302 

them,  dries  them,  and  wraps  them  up  in  paper,  and  all  of 
whose  wisdom  consists  in  determining  and  classifying  the  hay 
which  he  has  collected  with  great  pains. 

This  volume  might  well  be  called  the  poetry  of  botany.  It 
is  a  lyric  of  leaves,  an  epic  of  oaken  esplanades.  As  we  turn 
its  pages  we  hear  the  sap  stir  in  the  young  trees,  and  the  old 
branches  on  the  ground  crackle  under  our  feet;  we  inhale  the 
sweet  jessamine,  and  the  willow  shakes  its  pollen  in  our  faces. 

Only  a  poet  could  have  written  this  book  and  Schleiden  was 
a  poet :  he  even  wrote  verses  under  a  pseudonym.  Contrary 
to  a  general  belief,  many  scientists  possess  an  artistic  streak. 
Tyndall  was  the  troubadour  of  the  Alps;  Ludwig  Buchner, 
the  arch-materialist,  wrote  poetry  that  deserves  to  live;  if 
Dujardin's  miniatures  had  sold,  he  would  never  have  con- 
cerned himself  with  sarcode;  by  the  side  of  Max  Schultze's 
microscope  lay  his  violin;  August  Weismann  too,  when  he 
could  no  longer  gaze  down  the  ocular,  solaced  himself  with 
music;  Avenbrugger  wrote  an  opera,  and  Claude  Bernard  a 
drama;  and  the  investigator  of  the  Radiolaria  confessed,  '  In 
Sicily  I  was  nearly  thrown  out  of  my  line  and  made  a  land- 
scape-painter.' It  is  true  there  are  many  plodders  in  the  uni- 
versities and  laboratories  who  scorn  what  they  call  imagina- 
tion, and  pride  themselves  on  being  exact  scientists;  these  are 
the  sort  who  modify  someone's  reagent,  or  succeed  in  improv- 
ing a  separatory  funnel  for  quantitative  extraction,  but  they 
seldom  do  big  work.  There  are  conspicuous  exceptions,  how- 
ever, like  Cavendish  in  chemistry  and  Gegenbaur  in  anatomy. 

The  Plant  and  its  Life  appeared  in  England,  translated  by 
the  botanist  Arthur  Henfrey.  In  1853  tne  work  was  pub- 
lished in  the  United  Staites,  but  not  in  its  entirety,  as  some  of 
Schleiden's  heresies  were  considered  too  shocking  to  meet  the 
innocent  eyes  of  the  God-fearing  Americans.  The  editor  of 
the  edition,  Alphonso  Wood,  calmly  announced,  '  We  have 
taken  the  liberty  to  suppress  passages,  which  were  liable  to  be 
construed  as  irreverent.'  It  has  long  been  known  that  few 
masterpieces  of  European  literature  appear  in  America  in 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  SOS 

their  full  virility,  but  it  may  be  news  to  some  that  even  scien- 
tific writings  are  emasculated  before  being  served  to  our 
dainty  mental  palates.  We  wonder  if  the  time  will  ever 
come  when  the  prudes  and  the  hypocrites  will  be  prevented 
from  tampering  with  the  works  of  better  men. 

The  charm  of  this  volume  made  many  converts  for  botany. 
It  is  related  of  one  bright  German  lad  that  three  books  es- 
pecially influenced  his  formative  years  —  excluding  the  works 
of  Goethe.  They  were  Humboldt's  Aspects  of  Nature,  Dar- 
win's Naturalist's  Voyage  Round  the  World,  and  Schleiden's 
The  Plant  and  its  Life.  While  still  a  school-boy  at  Merse- 
burg  the  ardent  reader  dreamed  of  studying  botany  under 
Schleiden  at  Jena.  Indeed,  having  an  indulgent  father,  he 
was  permitted  to  visit  the  land  of  his  desire.  In  vivid  words 
he  has  himself  told  how  after  reverently  admiring  the  Goethe- 
room  in  the  castle  of  Dornburg,  he  wandered,  on  a  hot  July 
day,  over  the  shady  meadows  to  Jena,  singing  lustily  with  his 
gay  comrades.  As  he  entered  the  venerable  old  market-place 
he  found  a  troop  of  lively  students  in  front  of  the  Burgkeller, 
with  colored  caps  and  long  pipes,  singing,  and  drinking  the 
famous  Litchtenhain  beer  from  wooden  tankards.  It  made 
a  great  impression  on  him  and  as  he  took  a  tankard  with  them 
he  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  some  day  be  one  of  them. 

Two  years  later  the  examinations  were  passed  and  he  en- 
gaged rooms  at  Jena.  But  before  the  term  began  he  de- 
termined to  find  a  specimen  of  S cilia  bifolia  and  show  it  to 
Schleiden.  The  day  was  cold,  the  meadows  were  wet,  the 
plant  was  rare,  and  the  collector  was  imprudent.  Hours 
passed  before  he  discovered  the  squill,  but  he  satisfied  the  col- 
lector's mania,  and  he  was  happy.  That  night  he  was  at- 
tacked by  a  chill,  he  felt  nauseous,  there  was  a  painful  stiffness 
in  his  joints  —  it  was  a  beautiful  case  of  rheumatism.  The 
student  had  to  return  to  his  parents  at  Berlin,  and  Schleiden 
began  his  classes  without  Ernst  Haeckel. 

While  pursuing  his  botanical  studies  Schleiden  often  had 
occasion  to  delve  into  the  historical  portion  of  his  subject, 


£04  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

and  was  surprised  at  the  prominent  role  which  the  Jews 
played  in  the  growth  of  science;  going  deeper  into  the  mat- 
ter his  surprise  turned  into  admiration  and  he  expressed  the 
results  of  his  researches  in  a  booklet  on  Science  among  the 
Jews  before  and  during  the  Middle  Ages,  which  was  followed 
by  his  Romance  of  Jewish  Martyrology. 

In  the  first-named  production  he  lambastes  the  Christians 
with  downright  vigor  and  extols  the  Hebrews  as  paragons  of 
virtue  and  wisdom.  He  is  right  in  declaiming  against  the 
barrenness  of  monastic  medicine  and  eulogizing  the  superior 
attainments  of  the  countrymen  of  Maimonides,  tho  the 
passion  displayed  may  cause  some  to  imagine  that  he  carried 
the  odor  of  the  law-court  into  the  halls  of  science.  '  All 
Europe,'  writes  Schleiden,  '  had  its  Middle  Ages,  a  period  of 
barbarism,  of  intellectual  and  moral  decay,  as  deplorable  as 
any  that  can  be  conceived.  Only  the  Jews  formed  an  excep- 
tion. Despite  dispersion  and  oppression,  which  often  robbed 
them  of  the  very  right  to  live,  they  continued  to  develop  their 
intellectual  life,  without  interruption,  to  the  end  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  preserving  and  transmitting  to  other  nations  the  bases 
of  morality  and  of  mental  life.  Like  all  nobly  endowed  na- 
tures, they  stumbled  now  and  then  during  happy  moments, 
when  the  burden  of  existence  was  lightened,  but  every  reverse 
of  fortune,  every  affliction,  however  bitter  and  severe,  only 
serve  to  ennoble  them,  to  quicken  them  to  higher  mental  and 
moral  effort.' 

Schleiden's  name  will  ever  remain  illustrious  as  a  reformer 
of  botany,  but  versatile  men  are  apt  to  be  impatient,  and 
Schleiden  had  a  habit  of  reaching  conclusions  on  insufficient 
evidence.  His  opponents  were  not  slow  in  pointing  out  the 
misstatements  of  this  opinionated  botanist.  At  first  Schleiden 
fought  with  both  fists  in  defense  of  his  assertions,  but  more 
than  once  he  was  defeated  by  proof.  Schleiden  was  impres- 
sionable: he  became  disgusted  with  himself  and  lost  interest 
in  botany.  When  the  third  edition  of  the  Principles  of  Scien- 
tific Botany  appeared,  it  contained  no  revisions  by  the  author 


SCHLEIDEN  AND  SCHWANN  S05 

—  Schleiden  would  not  bother  with  it.     Quite  different  was 
the  careful  histologist  Kolliker  who  enlarged  his  Handbuch 
der  Gewebelehre  after  he  had  passed  the  age  of  seventy-five. 
Later  The  Journal  of  Scientific  Botany  ceased  publication,  for 
Schleiden  refused  to  edit  it  any  longer.     Finally,   in   1862, 
Schleiden  resigned  his  professorship. 

He  went  to  Dresden,  and  dallied  with  anthropology.  But 
Schleiden  had  a  reputation,  and  Dorpat  made  this  offer:  the 
chair  of  botany  and  anthropology,  with  the  rank  of  a  Russian 
councilor  of  state.  Schleiden  accepted,  and  thus  the  Livonian 
university  acquired  another  attraction  besides  Fraunhofer's 
refracting  telescope.  But  Schleiden  interspersed  his  lectures 
with  sundry  uncomplimentary  remarks  regarding  the  domi- 
nant theology,  and  soon  he  was  invited  to  allow  the  great  tele- 
scope to  shine  alone  in  its  glory. 

iHe  returned  to  Dresden  —  the  German  Florence,  as 
Herder  called  it  —  and  immersed  himself  in  philosophy;  from 
Saxony's  capital  he  came  to  Frankfort,  and  must  have  been 
reminded  of  his  former  panegyrics  when  he  passed  the 
famous  Ghetto  —  the  same  Judengasse  where  the  beautiful 
young  Goethe  had  lingered  with  curiosity  and  received  the 
smiles  of  Jewish  maidens.  For  a  time  he  was  at  fashion- 
able Wiesbaden,  but  returned  to  Frank fort-on-the-Main 
where  his  last  days  were  spent.  During  the  summer  of  1881, 
at  the  age  of  seventy-seven,  the  unique  Schleiden  passed 
away.  During  the  Christmas  season  of  the  following  year, 
while  visiting  his  relatives,  Schwann  received  the  fatal  stroke 
which  carried  him  off,  aged  seventy-two. 

Three-quarters  of  a  century  have  passed  since  the  in- 
auguration of  the  cell-theory,  and  the  names  of  Schleiden  and 
Schwann  have  grown  historic. 

In  that  incompleted  but  immortal  introduction  which  was 
still  in  the  making  when  its  author  perished  of  a  fever  at  Da- 
mascus, crying,  '  My  book,  my  book,  will  never  be  finished ! ' 

—  we  find  a  foot-note  to  this  effect :  '  There  is,  however,  now 
reason  to  think,  that  both  animal  and  vegetable  tissues  are, 


306  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

in  all  their  varieties,  referable  to  a  cellular  origin.  This 
great  view,  which  M.  Schwann  has  principally  worked  out, 
will,  if  fully  established,  be  the  largest  generalization  we 
possess  respecting  the  organic  world,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
to  overrate  its  value.' 

Buckle's  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled :  to-day  we  cannot  deal 
with  heredity,  reproduction,  embryonic  development,  repair, 
regeneration,  anabolism,  catabolism,  motion,  locomotion,  or 
questions  of  stimuli,  without  going  back  to  the  cell. 

'  I  believe  without  hesitation,'  said  Oskar  Hertwig,  address- 
ing the  Congress  of  Scientists  at  Aachen  in  1900,  *  that  I  must 
indicate  as  one  of  the  greatest  acquisitions  of  biology  during 
the  nineteenth  century  the  discovery  that  plants  and  animals 
are  built  up  of  cells,  of  innumerable  elementary  organisms.' 

In  the  Allgemeine  Physiologic  that  Max  Verworn  of  Jena 
published  in  1909  are  written  these  words :  '  It  is  to  the  cell 
that  the  study  of  every  bodily  function  sooner  or  later  drives 
us.  In  the  muscle  cell  lies  the  problem  of  muscular  con- 
traction and  of  the  heart  beat;  in  the  gland  cell  reside  the 
causes  of  secretion;  in  the  epithelial  cell,  in  the  white  blood 
corpuscle,  lies  the  problem  of  the  absorption  of  food,  and  the 
secrets  of  the  mind  are  hidden  in  the  ganglion  cell.' 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  cell-theory  Darwinism  might  have 
gone  begging  in  its  day,  but  when  men  saw  that  all  living 
things,  from  a  blade  of  grass  up  to  an  Asiastic  elephant,  arose 
from  a  cell  and  consisted  of  cells,  it  was  easier  to  believe  that 
such  universal  resemblances  were  due  to  a  common  descent. 

At  least  a  dozen  different  men  have  been  hailed  as  the 
father  of  modern  biology,  and  as  it  is  a  wise  science  that 
knows  its  own  father,  we  will  not  examine  the  parentage  too 
closely.  Yet,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  to-day  our  text-books 
in  histology,  embryology,  physiology,  pathology,  and  physi- 
ological chemistry  open  with  a  study  of  the  cell,  would  we  be 
far  wrong  if  we  claimed  the  honored  title  for  Schleiden  and 
for  Schwann? 


(1809-1882) 
DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE 


DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE 

[Written  for  the  Centenary  Anniversary  of  Darwin's  Birth] 

When  the  carriage  drew  up  before  Darwin's  house,  with  its  ivy  and  its 
shadowy  elms,  the  great  scientist  stepped  out  of  the  shade  of  the  creeper- 
covered  porch  to  meet  me.  He  had  a  tall  and  venerable  appearance,  with 
the  broad  shoulders  of  an  Atlas  that  bore  a  world  of  thought:  a  Jove- 
like  forehead,  as  we  see  in  Goethe,  with  a  lofty  and  broad  vault,  deeply 
furrowed  by  the  plough  of  intellectual  work.  The  tender  and 
friendly  eyes  were  overshadowed  by  the  great  roof  of  the  prominent 
brows.  The  gentle  mouth  was  framed  in  a  long,  silvery-white  beard. 
The  noble  expression  of  the  whole  face,  the  easy  and  soft  voice,  the  slow 
and  careful  pronunciation,  the  natural  and  simple  tenor  of  his  conver- 
sation, took  my  heart  by  storm  in  the  first  hour  that  we  talked  together, 
just  as  his  great  work  had  taken  my  intelligence  by  storm  at  the  first 
reading.  I  seemed  to  have  before  me  a  venerable  sage  of  ancient  Greece, 
a  Socrates  or  an  Aristotle. 

—  HAECKEL. 

EONS  ago,  when  the  Megatherium  and  the  Dinatherium 
fought,  and  the  huge  tusks  of  the  Mastodon  and  the  Mam- 
moth clashed,  and  gigantic  reptiles  crawled  on  their  bellies 
over  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  the  yell  and  howl  of  Cretaceous 
creatures  resounded  thru  the  primitive  jungle, —  the  world 
was  savage. 

Later,  an  ape-like  being  grasped  a  hanging  branch,  and 
raised  itself  to  an  upright  position,  and  peered  into  the  prime- 
val forest.  This  was  the  immediate  ancestor  of  Man, —  but 
the  world  was  savage  still. 

In  the  Tertiary  epoch,  for  the  first  time  appeared  an  animal 
that  walked  erect,  and  used  a  tool,  and  wore  a  garment.  This 
was  lordly  Man  himself, —  but  the  world  was  savage  still. 

Since  that  distant  day,  species  have  evolved  into  different 
forms;  sea  has  turned  into  land  and  earth  become  water; 
mountains  have  crumbled  into  dust,  and  the  lowest  valleys 
have  become  the  highest  hills;  customs  have  prevailed  and 

309 


310  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

perished;  races  have  lived  and  died;  religions  have  come 
and  gone;  empires  have  risen  and  fallen;  one  system  has 
replaced  another,  which  in  its  turn  has  given  way  to  a  later, 
—  and  now  we  are  veneered  with  culture  and  varnished  with 
civilization,  but,  scratch  us,  and  you  will  find  us  savage  still. 
The  lower  instincts  of  the  lower  beasts  survive  in  us.  We, 
too,  worship  the  primitive  law  of  force.  We  do  not  bite 
with  the  pointed  tooth,  nor  rend  asunder  with  sharpened  claw, 
but  our  navies  ride  at  anchor,  and  at  a  moment's  notice  a  mil- 
lion murderous  guns  will  belch  forth  the  stuff  that  makes  a 
child  an  orphan.  We,  too,  are  hunting  and  being  hunted 
in  a  World  of  War. 

But  Nature,  it  is  you  who  are  the  supreme  warrior.  De- 
struction is  your  delight.  The  entire  earth  is  your  grave- 
yard. Every  grain  of  soil  is  stained  with  blood,  and  every 
blade  that  grows,  every  flower  that  bows  its  head  before  the 
breeze,  is  a  monument  to  the  dead  that  forever  rest  beneath. 
Where  is  the  feathered  songster  of  the  forest  that  has  not 
feasted  on  its  prey?  Alas,  the  same  lovely  throats  which 
from  their  leafy  dwellings  fill  the  great  woods  with  harmony, 
are  red  with  the  blood  of  weaker  victims.  Then  they  sit 
and  shiver  at  the  thought  of  intruders  more  powerful  than 
themselves. 

Fear,  fear,  fear, —  everywhere  is  fear.  Nothing  is  safe. 
All  is  murder.  Nature  is  the  eternal  veteran,  all  are  her 
enemies,  and  she  never  accepts  the  flag  of  truce.  She  makes 
a  type  and  then  she  kills  it.  For  the  individual  she  has  not 
the  slightest  regard.  She  cares  nothing  for  the  life  which 
comes  continually  from  her  teeming  womb. 

Nature,  thy  mandate  is  chiseled  on  the  rocks,  it  is  echoed 
from  the  swamps  to  the  snows,  it  resounds  from  the  marshes 
to  the  mountains,  the  prairies  know  it,  and  the  pampas  tell 
it;  it  is  writ  across  the  sky,  and  our  planet  moans  beneath 
the  stern  decree:  flesh  shall  feed  on  flesh,  and  life  must  take 
life. 

You    destroy   what   you    create,    O    Blunderer!     Nature, 


DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE  811 

where  is  thy  justification?  In  the  beginning,  this  earth  swept 
thru  space,  formless  and  void.  Darkness  was  upon  its  face, 
—  except  when  the  lightnings  flashed  and  the  volcanoes 
glowed.  But  the  black  veil  lifted,  the  golden  sun  poured 
its  warming  rays  on  the  desolate  globe,  and  lo !  —  Mother 
Earth  was  pregnant.  A  tiny  speck  lay  in  the  primitive  waters, 
and  this  was  life.  And  Nature  watched  our  ultimate  ances- 
tor, and  from  that  time  on,  her  heavy  hand  has  smitten  and 
slaughtered. 

What  is  it  all  for?  Nature,  is  this  the  secret:  that  thou 
wipest  out  a  type  to  bring  a  higher  inf  Show  us  then,  the 
Perfect  Man.  Thou  hast  worked  long  enough  for  him.  Thru 
countless  epochs  the  process  has  gone  on.  Show  us,  Nature, 
the  best  you  have  produced.  We  wish  to  see  your  favorite 
and  pride. 

And  if  you  show  to  us  a  savant  whose  wisdom  was  vast, 
but  who  fawned  at  the  feet  of  degenerate  aristocracy,  we 
want  him  not.  And  if  you  show  to  us  a  writer  whose  style 
was  sweet,  but  who  bartered  his  brain  for  gold,  we  want  him 
not.  And  if  you  show  to  us  a  scientist  who  studied  the 
laws  of  the  universe,  but  paid  toll  to  theologic  superstitions, 
we  want  him  not.  And  if  you  show  to  us  a  bishop  who 
preached  in  favor  of  the  poor,  but  evicted  his  tenants  on  a 
wintry  day,  we  want  him  not.  And  if  you  show  to  us  a 
poet  who  vehemently  sang  of  love,  but  deserted  his  trusting 
wife,  we  want  him  not.  And  if  you  show  to  us  a  philosopher 
who  wrote  on  the  responsibilities  of  parenthood,  but  neglected 
his  little  children,  we  want  him  not. 

But  Nature  answers :  What  of  him,  my  warmest  lover, 
my  humblest  servant?  What  of  the  gentle  hand  that  placed 
the  radiant  crown  on  the  undecked  brow  of  Truth?  And 
Nature  has  redeemed  herself.  She  may  have  blundered,  and 
she  surely  has  effaced,  but  she  has  evolved  the  Perfect  Man. 
She  has  unfolded  Darwin  the  Great  and  Good, 

Charles  Darwin  was  a  naturalist.  He  investigated  facts. 
He  did  his  work  so  well  that  to-day  no  thoughtful  man  can 


312  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

cast  his  net  for  specimens,  or  wander  thru  the  depths  of  a 
tropical  grove,  or  explore  fossil  remains  in  a  geological  de- 
posit, or  scrape  the  barnacles  from  a  passing  ship,  or  study 
the  structure  of  a  coral-reef,  or  survey  a  belt  of  sand-dunes, 
or  scrutinize  a  monkey's  expression,  or  question  an  aboriginee, 
or  watch  a  crawling  worm,  or  examine  a  pollen-grain,  or 
look  at  a  dung-rolling  beetle,  or  dissect  a  curious  stomach, 
or  observe  a  plant  under  domestication,  or  witness  an  un- 
usual hail-storm,  or  climb  a  granitic  range,  or  view  a  glacier 
casting  off  its  icebergs,  or  meditate  upon  the  dawn  of  man- 
kind or  speculate  on  its  future  destiny,  without  recalling 
some  careful  and  conscientious  passage  from  the  unassuming 
thinker  who  dressed  in  dusty  gray,  and  lived  in  the  village  of 
Down. 

The  works  of  Darwin !  Put  all  his  books  on  a  shelf,  stand 
in  front  of  them,  O  Mortal, —  and  think !  Think  how  much 
love,  how  much  wisdom,  how  much  patience,  how  much  learn- 
ing, how  much  merit,  how  much  modesty,  how  much  great- 
ness, how  much  goodness,  went  into  the  making  of  them. 
Here  is  the  Journal  of  Researches,  which  has  awakened  the 
love  of  nature  in  many  breasts,  and  induced  more  than  one 
individual  to  travel  from  one  end  of  the  globe  to  the  other. 
Here  is  the  Structure  and  Distribution  of  Coral  Reefs,  an 
unsurpassed  example  of  the  scientific  method.  Here  is  A 
Monograph  of  the  Sub-class  Cirripedia,  and  this  alone  is 
sufficient  upon  which  to  found  an  immortal  reputation.  Here 
is  the  Expression  of  the  Emotions  in  Man  and  Animals, 
which  laid  the  broad  foundations  of  the  modern  science  of 
comparative  psychology.  Here  is  the  Formation  of  Vegetable 
Mould  thru  the  Action  of  Worms,  which  involves  an  ex- 
periment that  occupied  twenty-nine  years,  and  thus  serves  as 
an  inspiration  to  all  who  labor  earnestly  in  the  arduous  fields 
of  science.  Here  is  the  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants 
under  Domestication,  one  of  the  most  valuable  possessions 
in  the  mighty  treasure-house  of  botany.  Here  is  the  Descent 


DARWIN 


DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE  818 

of  Man,  which  fully  treats  of  selection  in  relation  to  sex. 
The  scientist  who  saw  all  nature  at  strife,  saw  her  also  in 
moods  of  love.  The  nightingale  sings,  the  turtle-dove  coos, 
the  katydid  babbles,  the  pigeon  nestles  close,  the  cricket  chirps 
in  the  amorous  dusk,  the  widow-bird  spreads  its  caudal 
plumes,  the  butterfly  shakes  its  brilliant  wings,  the  sea-scorpion 
swims  to  the  spawning-bed,  the  crocodile  splashes  in  the  little 
lagoon,  the  black-cock  dances  in  eager  passion,  the  starling 
flies  to  its  waiting  mate,  the  turkey  struts  with  distended 
wattles,  the  night- jar  makes  a  booming  noise,  the  wood-pecker 
strikes  a  sonorous  branch,  the  bustard  rises  with  hurried  flap- 
ping, the  bower-bird  builds  its  courting-home,  the  peacock 
extends  its  gorgeous  train,  the  pheasant  displays  its  splendid 
frills,  the  eared-seal  carries  its  willing  bride,  the  musk-deer 
emits  a  pleasant  odor,  the  lion  tosses  its  jubate  mane,  the 
linnet  distends  its  rosy  breast,  the  draco  glides  thru  the  sweet- 
ened air, —  all  in  spring-time,  all  for  love.  Look  at  this; 
here  is  the  Origin  of  Species,  the  book  that  changed  the  world, 
by  causing  its  intellectual  channels  to  flow  in  different 
courses  than  it  had  hitherto  followed.  The  works  of  Darwin ! 
You  stand  before  the  accumulated  knowledge  of  all  the  ages. 
A  thousand  discoveries  are  within  these  covers.  Think  how 
deep  and  often  that  noble  brow  has  been  contracted  with 
thought.  Is  the  topic  too  vast?  Does  its  immensity  balk 
the  mind?  Then  think  of  this  one  theme:  From  a  chatter- 
ing ape  of  the  forest,  swinging  from  branch  to  branch  by  its 
prehensile  tail,  to  the  scientific  Darwin  in  his  studio,  writing 
on  the  Geological  Succession  of  Organic  Beings! 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  Father  of 
Paleontology  showed  —  by  fossil  remains  —  that  a  series  of 
different  animal  species  had  succeeded  each  other  in  the  vari- 
ous stages  of  the  earth's  existence.  Naturally,  the  question 
arose:  What  caused  the  extinction  of  the  older  species,  and 
what  gave  rise  to  the  later  ones  ?  Linne  and  Cuvier  and  nearly 
all  others  solved  this  problem  by  the  catastrophic  theory. 


314  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

They  claimed  that  overwhelming  periodic  cataclysms  swept 
over  the  globe,  wiped  out  every  living  creature,  and  then  en- 
tirely new  beings  were  specially  created.  It  was  a  series  of 
wholesale  destructions  and  wholesale  re-buildings.  The 
Architect  of  the  Universe  grew  dissatisfied  with  his  work, 
and,  therefore,  threw  away  his  old  blocks  and  commenced  to 
build  anew. 

A  few  intellects  were  too  clear  to  be  entangled  in  these 
mythological  meshes.  Some  were  keen  enough  to  see  that 
species  undergo  modification,  and  that  the  existing  forms  of 
life  are  descended  from  pre-existing  ones. 

To  Buffon  belongs  the  high  honor  of  first  scientifically  dis- 
cussing the  origin  of  species  by  development.  But  Buffon 
lived  in  the  priest-pested  age  of  Louis  XV,  when  the  Bastille 
cast  its  shadow  on  the  brain  of  every  thinker.  And  Buffon 
often  thought  of  the  chains  that  eat  out  the  flesh,  and  the 
dungeons  which  the  sun  cannot  find,  and  then  he  ended  his 
arguments  thus:  'But  no;  it  is  certain  from  revelation  that 
every  species  was  directly  created  by  a  separate  fiat.'  (Yet 
Galileo-like,  he  must  have  murmured,  Eppur  Si  Muove!} 

In  the  same  land  was  born  Lamarck,  a  genius  cast  in  more 
daring  mold,  who  openly  proclaimed  his  conviction  that  all 
species,  including  man,  were  descended  by  modification  from 
primordial  forms. 

Men  began  to  recall  that  Kant,  in  his  cosmical  conception, 
had  said  something  of  development. 

Then  three  stars  brightened  the  scientific  sky, —  Goethe, 
Erasmus  Darwin  and  Geoffrey  St  Hilaire. 

Next  came  the  American  Dr  Wells,  who  recognized  the 
operation  of  the  principle  in  the  distribution  of  the  human 
race. 

Dean  Herbert  and  Professor  Graut  saw  a  twinkle  of  the 
coming  dawn. 

A  little  later,  Patrick  Matthew,  building  far  better  than  he 
knew,  wrote  a  book  on  Naval  Timber,  the  appendix  of  which 
contained  a  brief  but  complete  account  of  the  doctrine  of 
natural  selection! 


DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE  815 

Von  Buch  in  the  Canaries,  and  Wollaston  in  Madeira  were 
coming  to  the  conclusion  that  varieties  may  be  gradually 
changed  into  species. 

Every  Sunday  afternoon,  in  the  spacious  halls  of  his  great 
museum,  a  German  professor  walked  to  and  fro,  his  hands 
behind  his  back,  buried  in  thought.  A  favorite  pupil  sat  in 
the  angle  of  the  window,  skilfully  drawing  the  skulls  of  mam- 
mals, reptiles,  amphibians  and  fishes.  '  Master,'  asked  the 
boy,  '  must  not  all  these  vertebrates,  with  their  identity  in 
internal  skeleton,  in  spite  of  all  their  external  differences, 
have  come  originally  from  a  common  form?'  'Ah,'  an- 
swered Johannes  Muller,  as  he  looked  at  young  Ernst 
Haeckel,  '  if  we  only  knew  that !  If  ever  you  solve  that  rid- 
dle, you  will  have  accomplished  a  supreme  work.' 

Lyell  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  truth.  Oaken  was  re-study- 
ing Lamarck.  Bates  wandered  thru  the  Brazilian  forests, 
and  on  the  gossamer  wings  of  the  tropical  butterflies  read 
the  tale  of  evolution. 

To  Treviranus,  Haldeman,  Horner,  d'Halloy,  Owen,  Freke, 
Naudin,  Keyserling,  Schaaffhausen,  Baden-Powell,  Isidore  St 
Hilaire, —  to  these,  nature  whispered  the  same  secret. 

Lecoq  the  botanist,  and  Von  Baer  the  zoologist,  heard  it. 
Wallace  sat  under  the  Malayan  palm-trees,  and  the  lazy 
breezes  bore  him  a  similar  story.  Spencer  wrote  on  the 
theme  and  Huxley  lectured. 

The  scientific  atmosphere  grew  tense.  Much  thinking  was 
done,  but  the  theory  of  evolution  remained  in  an  unsatisfactory 
state.  There  were  many  scattered  bricks,  but  no  stately 
temple.  The  thoughtful  ones  worked  by  day  and  prayed  by 
night,  O  curtain,  that  hidest  the  unknown,  when  wilt  thou 
be  drawn  aside? 

On  November  24th,  1859,  as  if  in  answer  to  this  cry,  a 
light  pierced  the  gloom,  and  the  world  has  been  illumined  since. 

That  light  was  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species. 

A  score  and  seven  years  ago,  the  body  of  Darwin, —  borne 
by  two  dukes,  two  sirs  and  a  belted  earl  —  was  laid  at  rest 


316  PATHFINDERS  IN  MEDICINE 

in  Westminster  Abbey,  next  the  ashes  of  the  mighty  Newton. 
A  fitting  honor,  and  yet  a  vain  one,  for  when  the  altars  and 
architraves  of  the  great  Abbey  rock  and  reel,  when  its  lighted 
and  vaulted  ambulatory  becomes  the  abode  of  the  bats,  when 
its  murals  and  mosaics  are  destroyed,  when  its  twisted  col- 
umns and  its  spiral  bands  totter  in  despair,  when  its  effigies 
of  angels  and  its  monuments  of  royalties  are  obliterated,  when 
the  cloisters  and  the  chapter-houses  tumble  in  a  heap,  when  its 
pointed  towers  and  projecting  transepts  embrace  the  lowly 
dust,  the  illustrious  and  immortal  name  of  Charles  Darwin 
will  still  be  a  living  force.  Only  when  the  race  of  man 
ceases  to  search  for  truth,  can  the  lustre  of  that  name  grow 
dim. 

One  hundred  years  ago,  Darwin  was  born.  To-day  the 
entire  intellectual  world  salutes  him  with  homage.  Not  with 
the  roaring  of  guns,  but  with  the  throbbing  of  brains  and 
beating  of  hearts.  Of  all  the  men  who  ever  lived  it  is  per- 
haps impossible  to  find  another  who  was  so  world-famous  and 
so  modest.  An  Alexander  conquers  a  few  kingdoms  from 
barbarian  subjects,  and  henceforth  considers  himself  a  god. 
A  Horace  writes  verses  which  gain  admiration,  and  he  fol- 
lows this  by  another  poem  boasting  that  he  has  reared  unto 
himself  a  monument  more  enduring  than  brass.  But  a  Dar- 
win wrests  secret  after  secret  from  the  breast  of  nature,  he 
explains  what  was  never  explained  before,  and  at  the  last 
he  simply  says:  Ignoramus,  In  Hoc  Signo  Labor  emus. 

But  in  spite  of  his  excessive  gentleness  he  was  absolutely 
independent,  and  when  the  cause  of  his  beloved  science  was 
at  stake,  he  could  easily  stand  against  all  without  flinching. 
His  work  was  great,  and  so  is  his  reward.  Let  anyone  now 
think  in  a  pre-Darwinian  manner,  and  he  becomes  as  much  an 
anomaly  as  one  who  should  seek  for  the  magic  stone  that 
transmutes  baser  metals  into  gold.  Within  his  own  lifetime 
his  name  was  turned  into  an  adjective,  and  a  thousand  Dar- 
winian writers  were  filling  libraries  with  books  on  Darwinism. 

Succeeding  generations  have  continued  the  worthy  and  wel- 


DARWIN,  SAINT  OF  SCIENCE  817 

come  task,  and  to-day  on  his  centenary,  his  grave  is  the 
greenest  in  all  the  world.  Tall  men  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth  have  garlanded  him  with  wreaths  that  do  not  fade, 
and  laurels  that  never  die. 

Among  these  glorious  bay-trees  I  cast  this  little  chaplet. 
It  is  small,  and  its  merit  scant,  but  every  leaf  of  it  was  in- 
terwoven with  veneration.  It  will  not  bloom  like  other  coro- 
nals, tho  it  was  love  that  brought  it  forth.  Accept,  accept 
it,  O  Saint  of  Science,  for  I  too  know  thee  as  the  wonder 
and  the  glory  of  the  universe! 


NOVi 


DUE  ^ 


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